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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


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GIFT  OF 

Commodore  Byron  McCandless 


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%ahc  (3coroe  in  Ibistor^ 


BY 


ELIZABETH  EGGLESTON  SEELYE 

AUTHOR   OF 

THE    STORY    OF    WASHINGTON,    THE    STORY    OF    COLUMBL'S, 

THE    LIFE    OF   TECUMSEH,    THE    LIFE   OF    POCAHONTAS, 

THE     LIFE    OF    BRANT    AND     RED    JACKET, 

THE    LIFE    OF   MONTEZUMA,    ETC, 


TWELFTH  EDITION 


PUBLISHED   BY   ELWYN   SEELYE 
LAKE   GEORGE,    N.  Y. 


Copyright,  1896,  1897, 
By   ELIZABETH   EGGLESTON    SEELYE 


F 
/^^ 

CONTENT  S.G-S^'^b 
!^^T 

PACK 

A  great  water  pathway 1 

The  niakiug  of  Lake  George ^ 

The  Indians  of  Lake  George 3 

The  discovery  of  Lake  George 4 

The  naming  of  Lake  George i) 

Lake  George  a  warpath 11 

A  canoe  expedition 12 

The  path  of  peace  messengers 13 

The  English  advance  to  Lake  George 14 

The  French  at  Ticonderoga 16 

The  march  on  Fort  Edward 17 

Tlie  bloody  morning  scout 20 

The  battle  of  Lake  George '^3 

The  Bloody  Pond  fight -^ 

Baron  Dieskau's  danger "-iO 

Holding  Lake  George 30 

Scouting  on  Lake  George 35 

A  winter  attack  on  Fort  William  Henry ^.0 

Montcalm  on  Lake  George 43 

The  siege  of  Fort  William  Henry 48 

The  fall  of  Fort  William  Henry 58 

The  massacre  of  Lake  George 60 

The  battle  of  Rogers'  Rock 70 

Rollers'  slide 73 

The  battle  of  Ticonderoga 75 

Putnam's  adventure 84 

Last  scenes  of  the  French  war  about  Lake  George     .        .  88 

Ethan  Allen  at  Ticonderoga 0~ 

Benjamin  Franklin  on  Lake  George 94 

Burgoyne  in  control  of  Lake  George 96 

The  Battle  of  Diamond  Island 100 

Early  visitors  at  Lnke  George     .        .        .        .      •  .        .        .103 

Points  of  historic  interest  on  and  about  Lake  George  104 

ill 


957385 


LAKE    GEOEGE    IN    HISTOEY. 


A    GREAT    WATER    PATHWAY. 

Lake  George  a^'d  Lake  Champlain  are  two 
great  links  between  the  waters  of  the  St.  Law- 
rence system  and  the  Hudson  River.  Before 
the  invention  of  the  railway  nothing-  could  be 
more  important  than  such  a  water  route.  Until 
the  interminable  forests  had  been  cleared  and 
roads  built  there  was  no  other  means  of  travers- 
ing- the  continent,  and  even  then  the  waterwaj-s 
remained  the  only  practicable  route  for  moving 
cannon,  heavy  stores  and  merchandise,  while  man 
himself  could  travel  much  more  easily,  cheaply 
and  swiftly  by  ^^•ater. 

Here  then  for  untold  ages  Indian  war  parties 
came  and  went.  At  this  gateway  between  two 
lands  English  and  French  struggled  for  the  pos- 
session of  a  continent.  Here  England  descended 
upon  her  rebellious  colonies  and  strove  to  cut 
them  in  twain;  and  here  the  sturdy  northern 
farmers  first  showed  their  power  to  resist  the 
veteran  troops  of  the  Old  World. 
1 


Before  the  building  of  the  Champlain  canal 
an  infant  trade  flowed  through  these  waters,  and 
travelers  sought  this  route  between  the  United 
States  and  Canada.  xSo  part  of  the  country  is 
richer  in  historical  interest;  no  other  American 
waters  have  seen  so  many  armies  pass  up  and 
down  them,  gay  with  the  brilliant  costumes  of 
an  old  world  and  a  past  age. 

THE  MAKING  OF  LAKE  GEORGE. 

Lake  George  lies  at  the  eastern  edge  of  the 
Adirondack  mountain  system,  which  is  one  of 
the  oldest  on  our  continent,  being  formed  of 
ancient  rock  which  rose  above  the  sea  long  be- 
fore the  most  of  North  America  ceased  to  be 
ocean  floor.  The  rains  and  frosts  of  immensely 
long  ages  have  very  much  reduced  the  height 
of  these  mountains  and  worn  them  down  to  their 
present  rounded  outlines. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  Lake  George,  the  south- 
ern end  of  which  is  almost  enclosed  in  a  loop  of 
the  Hudson,  should  empty  its  waters  into  the  St. 
Lawrence.  Dr.  G.  Frederick  Wright  has  recently 
discovered  that  before  the  Glacial  Age  Lake 
George  did  not  exist.  The  original  watershed  of 
the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  Hudson  rivers  he  finds 
to  lie  across  the  Narrows  of  Lake  George;  and 
here  two  streams  took  their  rise,  one  of  which 
ran  northward  to  Lake  Champlain  and  the  other 
southward  through  Dunham's  Bay  to  the 
Hudson.  During  the  Glacial  Age  the  face  of  this 
country  was  covered  with  a  slowly  moving  sheet 


of  ice  to  the  height  of  some  thousands  of  feet, 
which  carved  and  shaped  the  bed  of  Lake  George, 
and  deposited  as  it  melted,  great  quantities  of 
sand  and  gravel,  or  clay,  both  to  the  north  of 
Baldwin,  where  one  stream  had  formerly  found 
its  way  into  Lake  Champlain,  and  at  the  head 
of  Dunham's  Bay  marsh,  where  the  other  had 
taken  its  course  to  join  the  Hudson. 

These  hills  of  glacial  drift  dammed  back  the 
waters  of  the  brawling  mountain  brooks  and 
made  a  lake  of  what  was  once  a  rugged  valley — 
a  lake  which  found  its  only  outlet  across  the 
rocks  at  Ticonderoga. 

THE   INDIANS   OF   LAKE   GEORGE. 

Lake  George  and  Lake  Champlain,  forming  a 
natural  warpath  between  the  St.  Lawrence  and 
the  Hudson,  the  shores  of  Lake  George  were  not 
a  safe  dwelling  place  for  savages,  and  it  is  prob- 
able that  for  ages  they  had  seen  few  inhabitants 
other  than  an  occasional  group  of  famished  fisher- 
men who  sought  such  spots  as  Dunham's  Bay 
Creek,  in  the  spring,  to  spear  the  myriads  of  fish 
which  flocked  to  its  warmer  water  during  the 
spawning  season. 

As  far  back  as  we  know  the  Iroquois  Indians 
held  undisputed  sway  on  these  w^aters,  and  by 
means  of  them  made  their  warlike  descents  upon 
the  natives  of  Canada,  Other  savages  only  ven- 
tured on  Lake  George  to  steal  into  the  country  of 
the  Iroquois  to  deal  them  some  revengeful  blow. 

The  Iroquois,  or  Five  Nations,  were  a  confed- 


eracy  of  Indian  peoples  of  one  race,  whose  vil- 
lag-es  lay  in  a  line  across  Ncav  York  State  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Mohawk  River  to  Lake  Erie. 
Unlike  many  other  tribes,  they  fortified  their 
towns  with  some  skill  and  did  not  depend  on  the 
hinit  alone  for  food,  but  raised  corn,  which  they 
bip'  ^  for  use  in  the  Winter.  They  were  invet- 
erate warriors  and  they  had  attained  perhaps 
as  great  a  degree  of  advancement  as  wf  3  possible 
on  a  continent  where,  north  of  Mexico,  th,«re 
were  no  spots  in  which  an  infant  civilization 
might  develop  in  comparative  freedom  from  war- 
like inroads.  Situated  where  they  commanded  the 
Great  Lakes,  the  St.  Lawrence,  Lake  George  and 
Lake  Champlain,  the  Mohawk  and  the  Hudson, 
a  vast  system  of  natural  water  courses,  the  ter- 
ror of  their  inroads  was  felt  in  the  Ohio  Valley, 
among  the  Indians  of  Illinois,  in  Canada,  and  so 
far  eastward  that  the  natives  of  New  England 
drew  in  close  to  the  seaboard,  shudderingly  tell- 
ing their  white  neighbors,  "  Mohog  (Mohawk)  all 
devil." 

THE   DISCOVERY   OF  TAKE    GEORGE. 

Champlain,  the  typical  soldier-explorer  of  his 
day,  a  man  whose  gaze  was  fixed  on  the  dawn  of 
a  great  commercial  age,  seeking  in  the  w^ater 
courses  of  North  America  for  a  western  route 
to  China  and  the  spice  islands  of  the  Orient,  nar- 
rowly missed  being  the  discoverer  of  Lake  George. 

During  the  first  year  after  the  founding  of 
Quebec,  having  heard  from  the  Indians  of  a  lake 


o 

e 

if 

►  "t  ■                          ^  1  * 

■ 

-SU 

pi 

of  great  size  and  beauty,  in  which  were  many  fair 
islands,  he  joined  .'  war  party  of  Canadian  In- 
dians, bent  on  attacking"  the  Mohawks  in  their 
home  on  the  river  of  that  name.  To  the  Indians 
Lake  Georg-e  and  Lake  Champlain  were  one,  the 
latter  "  the  door  of  the  country,"  and  the  former, 
Andiatorocte,  or,  "  there  the  water  closes,"  an 
allusion  to  the  falls  in  the  stream  of  the  outlet, 
around  which  the\'  were  obliged  to  carry  their 
canoes.  It  ha^^pened  that  the  Canadian  Indians 
were  met  on  Lake  Champlain  by  an  Iroquois  war 
party,  where  the  battle  took  place  instead  of  on 
the  Mohawk,  and  Lake  George  remained  unknown 
for  thirty-two  years  longer,  when  it  was  the  lot 
of  Father  Jogues,  a  suffering  and  captive  Jesuit, 
and  two  young  Frenchmen,  his  disciples,  to  be 
the  first  white  men  to  look  upon  this  beautiful 
sheet  of  water. 

Thouglf  the  French  excelled  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  Indians,  it  chanced  that  by  their 
friendly  alliance  with  the  natives  of  Canada  the}' 
found  themselves  embroiled  with  the  most  power- 
ful savages  on  the  continent.  The  Iroquois,  who 
had  first  fled  in  terror  from  the  firearms  of 
Champlain,  had-  bided  their  time,  and  when  by 
their  trade  with  the  Dutch  at  Albany  they  had 
become  possessed  of  a  number  of  these  desirable 
engines  of  war,  the  more  western  Iroquois  fell 
with  redoubled  fury  upon  the  Indians  of  Lake 
Huron,  while  the  Mohawks  glided  up  the  Hudson, 
Lake  George  and  Lake  Champlain  to  destroy  the 
French  border  settlements,  or  lay  in  wait  along 


the  shores  of  the  St.  Lawrence  to  cut  off  French 
trade  with  the  Hiirons. 

On  a  morning-  in  the  August  of  1642  such  a  war 
party  ambushed  twelve  canoes  making-  their  way 
up  the  St.  Lawrence,  deeply  laden  with  ammuni- 
tion, guns,  kettles,  blankets,  hatchets  and  such 
articles  as  Indians  prized  and  bought  with  their 
beaver  skins.  There  was  a  short  fig-ht,  a  flig-ht 
and  a  pursuit.  Twenty  out  of  fortj^  of  the  fugi- 
tives were  captured,  and  among  them  was  Father 
Jogues,  a  gentle  Jesuit  priest,  fated  to  be  the 
unwilling  discoverer  of  Lake  George. 

He  had  already  been  on  manj^  perilous  mis- 
sions to  the  Indians  of  Canada,  living  in  their 
filthy,  smoky  huts,  trudging,  half-starved  and 
nearly  frozen  from  village  to  village,  hated  and 
suspected  as  an  "  okie  "  who  might  bring  disease 
and  ruin  with  his  mysterious  incantations,  often 
threatened  with  the  tomahaw^k,  yet  patiently 
going  where  his  superior  ordered  him.  He  was 
thirty-five  years  old,  with  slight  and  delicate 
features,  and  the  tastes  of  a  scholar,  though  he 
was  an  enduring  runner  and  could  outstrip  most 
Indians  in  this  exercise.  With  him  were  two 
young  lay  assistants.  Couture  and  Goupil,  bound, 
like  him,  to  the  countr3'  of  the  Hurons  on  painful 
missionary  labors. 

Couture  had  at  first  made  his  escape  to  the 
rushes  on  the  shore,  and  Joques  might  have  fol- 
lowed him,  but  the  priest  had  given  himself  up 
W'hen  he  saw  Goupil  a  captive,  and  Couture  did 
the  same  oii  discovering  that  the  good  father  was 


in  the  hands  of  the  savag-es,  not,  however,  until 
he  had  first  killed  an  Indian  who  snapped  a  g-un 
at  his  breast.  In  revenge  for  this  act  the  enraged 
Mohawks  gnawed  his  fingers  and  pulled  out  his 
finger  nails  with  their  teeth;  and  when  Father 
Jogues  fell  upon  his  friend's  neck,  at  the  sight 
of  his  sufferings,  they  treated  him  to  the  same 
tortures. 

After  knocking  in  the  head  a  Huron  Indian 
who  was  disabled  from  walking,  but  whom  Father 
Jogues  did  not  fail  to  baptize  with  his  mangled 
hands,  the  triumphant  Indians  made  their  way  up 
the  Richelieu  River  and  Lake  Champlain,  the 
prisoners  suffering  greatly  by  the  way  from 
heat,  wounds  and  mosquitoes.  At  the  southern 
end  of  Lake  Champlain  they  fell  in  with  another 
war  party  coming  northward,  and  here  on  an 
island  the  prisoners  were  made  to  run  the  gauntlet 
between  two  rows  of  fiendishly  jo;,;)us  savages, 
who  beat  them  with  clubs  and  thorny  sticks  that 
they  might  not  fail  of  success  in  their  coming 
raid  for  want  of  this  ceremony. 

In  a  woful  plight  Father  Jogues  labored  across 
the  carrying  place  at  Ticonderoga  and  cast  sad 
eyes  on  the  lovely  stretches  of  Lake  George. 

The  ijarty  hastened  up  the  lake,  left  their 
boats  at  its  head,  somewhere  near  -where  Fort 
William  Henry  afterwards  stood,  and  took  their 
way  to  their  home  on  the  Mohawk.  Here  the 
captives  were  carried  in  triumph  from  town  to 
town,  running  the  gauntlet  at  each  fresh  stop- 
ping   place — "  a    narrow    road    to    Paradise,"    the 


8 

g-ood  father  called  it — and  underg-oing-  various 
tortures  ironically  known  as  "  caresses  "  among- 
the  Indians.  The  ceremonies  of  the  Frenchmen's 
relig-ion  excited  the  superstitious  fears  of  the 
savag-es  and  they  tomahawked  Goupil  for  making 
the  sign  of  the  cross  on  the  forehead  of  a  child. 
Couture  they  adopted  because  they  admired  him 
for  his  courage  in  shooting  his  man  at  the  mo- 
ment of  his  capture;  but  for  Father  Joques,  who 
could  not  hunt,  who  would  not  eat  the  meat  over 
which  they  had  performed  a  heathen  ceremony 
and  who  spent  his  time  in  efforts  to  secretly  bap- 
tize dying  infants,  or  victims  at  the  stake,  they 
had  no  use,  and  his  life  was  in  constant  danger. 
Once  he  only  escaped  a  summary  death  in  revenge 
for  the  rumored  loss  of  a  war  party  by  his  ab- 
sence at  a  small  body  of  water,  probably  Sara- 
toga Lake,  where  he  and  the  half-famished  In- 
dian family  with  which  he  lived  sometimes  sub- 
sisted on  frogs  and  the  entrails  of  fish.  He  was 
hurried  back  to  the  Mohawk,  where  his  life  was 
only  saved  by  the  safe  arrival  of  the  war  party 
before  him. 

At  last  after  a  year  of  captivity  he  accompanied 
the  Indians  on  a  trading  expedition  to  Albany 
and  here  kind  Dutch  people  persuaded  him  to 
escape,  hiding  him  first  in  a  vessel  in  the  river 
and  then  in  a  garret  and  finally  paying  the  In- 
dians a  large  ransom  for  him. 


THE   NA3IING    OF    LAKK    GEORGE. 

Father  Jog-ues  made  Iiis  way  back  to  France, 
where  he  was  caressed  by  g-reat  ladies  of  the 
court  and  the  Queen  kissed  his  mangled  hands. 
But  he  returned  to  his  labors  in  Canada,  and  in 
1646  when  it  was  rumored  that  the  Iroquois 
wished  to  make  peace  with  that  country,  he,  who 
knew  their  language,  was  sent  again  into  the 
land  of  the  Mohawks,  with  some  presents  for 
these  people.  Father  Jogues  accepted  this  dan- 
gerous errand  as  his  duty,  and  accompanied  by 
some  Algonquin  Indians,  he  ascended  Lake  Cham- 
plain  once  more  and  crossed  the  portage  at  Ticon- 
deroga  to  Lake  George. 

There  on  a  June  day  the  party  might  be  seen 
swiftly  paddling  up  the  lake,  differing  in  no  way 
from  the  war  parties  of  past  ages  except  for  the 
refined  face  of  the  black-robed  priest  and  the 
lading  of  European  goods  which  Jogues  carried 
by  way  of  a  peace  offering.  They  reached  the 
head  of  Lake  George  on  the  eve  of  the  church 
holiday'  known  as  Corpus  Christi;  and  for  this 
reason  Father  Jogues  named  the  lovely  lake  of 
his  discovery  Lac  St.  Sacrement,  or  Lake  of  the 
Holy  Sacrament;  and  this  name  it  retained  for 
more  than  a  hundred  jears,  in  the  mouths  of 
English  as  well  as  French.  At  the  head  of  the 
lake  Father  Jogues  and  his  companions  left  their 
canoes  and  carrying  their  peace  otTerings  on  their 
backs  to  the  Hudson  they  borrowed  canoes  at  an 
Indian  fishing  village  on  this  river  and  descended 


10 

it  to  the  Mohawk  towns.  Thej'  found  that  there 
were  two  parties  among  the  Mohawks,  one  of 
which  wished  for  peace  and  one  was  determined 
on  war.  Jog-ues  was  soon  in  imminent  danger 
from  tlie  latter  party.  Friendly-  Indians  warned 
him  to  be  gone.  He  had  intended,  if  all  were 
favorable,  to  found  a  mission  among  the  Mohawks, 
and  before  his  departure  he  left  behind  him  a 
box  containing  some  useful  articles,  which  he 
might  need  if  he  returned  for  this  purpose.  As 
the  Indians  were  curious  he  opened  the  box,  and 
showing  them  what  was  in  it,  locked  it  again. 
He  then  ascended  the  Hudson  and  returned  to 
Lake  George,  where  he  found  his  canoes,  and  so 
made  his  way  by  water  back  to  Canada. 

Father  Jogues  had  not  been  long  returned 
when  he  was  ordered  by  his  superior  to  go  back 
to  the  ^lohawk  country  and  found  a  mission, 
which  was  to  be  called  "  The  Mission  of  the 
Martj^rs."  For  the  fourth  and  last  time  the 
Jesuit  took  his  way  through  the  waters  of  Lake 
George. 

The  Indians  had  grown  suspicious  of  him. 
They  fancied  that  the  box  which  he  had  left 
among  them  contained  a  charm  which  had  caused 
a  worm  to  eat  their  corn.  A  tomahawk '  de- 
scended on  his  head  one  evening  as  he  was  enter- 
ing* an  Indian  wigwam,  where  he  had  been  asked 
to  a  feast,  and  thus  "  the  ^Mission  of  the  Martyrs  " 
was  sealed  with  the  blood  of  the  gentle  discoverer 
of  Lake  George. 


11 


I.AKE   GEORGE   A   TVARPATH. 

Long-  after  its  discovery  hy  Father  Jogues  Lake 
George  remained  a  war  path,  peopled  only  by 
fleets  of  canoes  propelled  by  hideously  painted 
savages,  stealing  forth  on  their  errand  of  death 
or  hurrying"  homeward  laden  with  spoils  and 
trembling  captives.  During*  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury the  Iroquois  Indians  were  possessed  with  a 
rage  for  conquest,  exterminating  or  subduing  all 
about  them.  It  was  no  more  than  the  old  barbar- 
ous drama  long-  enacted  in  the  western  world, 
a  dreary  tale  of  human  suffering-  and  woe, 
hastened  on  by  the  introduction  of  European  fire- 
arms. 

New  York  in  time  became  an  Eng-lish  province 
and  these  fierce  warriors  were  the  only  barrier  be- 
tween the  English  and  the  French,  who  vied  with 
each  other  in  seeking  their  trade.  North  America 
had  ceased  to  be  the  resort  of  romantic  soldiers 
searching-  for  the  gateway  to  an  Old  World  in  the 
New,  and  had  fallen  to  the  lot  of  shrewd  traders 
and  hardy  pioneers.  Canada  and  New^  York  both 
aspired  to  be  the  buyers  and  sellers  of  the  rich 
furs  of  the  Northwest,  and  both  claimed  to  own 
the  Iroquois  country  from  Lake  George  to  Lake 
Erie. 

So  long-  as  colonies  of  both  France  and  England 
remained  side  by  side  in  the  New  World  every  am- 
bitious scheme  of  their  princes  in  Europe  was  cer- 
tain to  throw  these  infant  provinces  into  war, 
made   doubly   ])itter   by    the    savage   allies   which 


12 

each  sought  to  set  upon  the  firesides  of  the  other. 
For  seventy  years  tliere  ^^•as  strife  between  the 
French  and  Eng-lish  in  America,  broken  only  by 
short  periods  of  peace.  Again  and  again  was  the 
valley  of  Lake  George  the  theatre  of  this  struggle 
between  two  great  peoples  for  the  possession  of  a 
continent. 

A   CANOE   EXPEDITION. 

In  the  summer  of  1690  the  English  made  an 
effort  to  control  the  great  waterway  into  Canada, 
toiling  up  the  Hudson  in  canoes  which  must  be 
carried  around  the  falls  and  rapids,  or  marching 
through  the  unbroken  forests  on  the  river  bank, 
their  stores  loaded  upon  pack  horses,  camping  at 
South  Bay  on  Lake  Champlain  only  to  fail  in  the 
end  from  the  lack  of  provisions,  lack  of  harmony 
and  the  small-pox.  Both  French,  and  English  were 
as  yet  too  poor  and  feeble  for  grand  military  in- 
vasions and  the  inroad  into  Canada  under  the 
leadership  of  Peter  Schuyler,  the  next  year,  was  a 
more  possible  attempt.  Schuyler,  a  mayor  of  Al- 
bany, much  loved  bj^  the  Indians,  who  called  him 
"  Quider,"  launched  a  fleet  of  canoes  on  Lake 
George  in  the  summer  of  1691,  manned  with  about 
one  hundred  and  twenty  English  and  Dutch  and 
one  hundred  and  forty  ^Mohawks  and  Mohegans. 
He  ascended  Lake  George  and  Lake  Champlain, 
slipped  by  the  French  fort  of  Chambly,  on  the 
Richelieu,  marched  through  the  woods  to  La 
Prairie,  opposite  Montreal,  took  twice  his  number 
of  French  by  surprise,  got  the  better  of  them  in  a 


cq 


13 

snort  fight,  cut  down  the  green  corn  in  the  fields 
and  retreated  through  the  woods  toward  his 
canoes.  The  French,  however,  lay  in  ambush  for 
him  in  the  forest;  Schuyler  charged  them,  drove 
them  from  their  hiding*  place,  foug-ht  his  way 
through  their  midst,  turned  around  and  drove 
them  back  some  forty  paces  over  the  bodies  of 
the  slain  and  was,  to  tell  the  truth,  as  he  said, 
heartily  glad  to  see  them  retreat.  He  finally  re- 
gained his  canoes,  having  left  his  dead  and  his 
flags  behind  him,  but  brought  off  his  wTOunded. 

A  few  days  later  found  this  gallant  little  band 
paddling  up  Lake  George,  having  fought  the  first 
fight  in  this  region,  which  savored  but  little  of  In- 
dian methods  of  warfare;  and  well  it  might  since 
the  braves  on  both  sides  had  nearly  all  deserted  at 
the  outset  of  the  struggle. 

THE  PATH  OF  PEACE  MESSENGERS. 

In  1698,  pluck^'  Peter  Schuyler  and  the  Dutch 
dominie  at  Albany  paddled  down  Lake  George  on 
their  way  to  Canada,  with  news  of  the  Peace  of 
Ryswick,  which  is  the  more  memorable  in  this 
region  because  the  Iroquois  lords  of  these  waters 
ceased  from  the  time  to  be  great  conquerors. 
Deadly  wars  had  much  reduced  their  numbers, 
they  had  taken  a  fresh  step  in  civilization  and 
become  shrewd  traders,  and  they  were  so  politic 
as  to  see  that  they  gained  in  importance  bj'  join- 
ing neither  the  English  nor  the  French,  being 
courted  l)y  both,  while  they  were  not  without  a 
shrewd   suspicion   that    these   eager   friends   were 


14 

each  casting  covetous  eyes  on  their  lands.  Thus 
it  fell  out  that  Lake  George  was  at  peace  for  the 
first  time,  in  all  probability,  for  untold  ages. 

THE   £NGI.ISH   ADVANCE    TO    LAKE   GEORGE. 

The  last  French  war  was  the  only  one  of  the 
four  to  begin  in  America;  the  only  one  in  which 
the  disputes  of  the  New  World  threw  the  Old  into 
a  struggle. 

English  and  French  interests  clashed  at  many 
points  as  well  as  in  the  region  of  Lake  George,  and 
it  was  in  a  race  for  the  possession  of  the  Ohio 
Valley  that  that  war  first  broke  out.  The  English 
began  the  war  with  great  vigor,  encroaching. 
France  was  to  be  pushed  back  at  four  points,  the 
mouth  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  the  Ohio  Valley,  the 
Great  Lakes,  and  at  Lake  Champlain.  William 
Johnson,  the  Indian  agent  of  the  Mohawk,  for  the 
reason  that  he  was  the  only  man  who  could  hope 
to  engage  the  Iroquois  Indians  on  the  English 
side  in  the  war,  was  chosen  to  lead  an  armj^ 
against  Crown  Point. 

"  My  w^ar  kettle  is  on  the  fire,"  he  said  in  a 
speech  to  the  Indians,  "  my  canoe  is  ready  to 
launch,  my  gun  is  loaded,  my  sword  is  by  my  side 
and  my  axe  is  sharpened."  He  threw  down  the 
war  belt  and  an  Oneida  chief  took  it  up;  but  there 
had  to  be  endless  councils  and  much  consumption 
of  barbecued  oxen  and  punch  before  some  three 
hundred  braves  were  aroused  to  the  pitch  of  join- 
ing him  afterwards  at  Lake  St.  Sacrement,  as  Lake 
George  was  then  called. 


15 

In  the  summer  of  1755,  Johnson's  soldiers  gath- 
ered slowly  at  Albany  from  five  different  colonies, 
amid  much  confusion  about  provisions,  each  prov- 
ince attempting"  to  feed  its  own  men.  In  July 
some  of  these  men  were  sent  up  the  Hudson  to 
build  forts  at  the  various  carrying-  places  on  the 
river  and  to  cut  a  road  from  Albany  to  Lake 
George.  It  was  not  until  the  latter  part  of  Au- 
gust that  General  Johnson  with  some  three  or 
four  thousand  men  made  his  way  up  the  rough 
hewn  road,  regaling  his  officers  by  the  way  with 
cold  venison  and  lemon  punch. 

Johnson  was  an  ambitious  joung  Irishman,  of 
a  good  family,  amassing  a  fortune  out  of  trade  and 
wild  lands,  a  favorite  with  men  in  power  and  much 
loved  by  the  Indians  by  reason  of  his  just  dealing 
and  his  half-breed  family.  He  lived  in  some  state 
on  the  Mohawk  in  a  colonial  mansion,  swarmed 
over  bj'^  his  Indian  neighbors,  a  strange  mixture 
of  the  European  gentleman,  the  Indian  trader  and 
the  pioneer.  Arrived  at  the  lake,  his  first  act  was 
to  re-name  it  after  King  George  II,  not  only  in 
honor  of  this  dull  monarch,  but  as  he  said  to 
assert  his  undoubted  dominion  over  these  waters. 
He  chose  for  his  camj)  a  spot  near  the  beach  at  the 
head  of  the  lake,  with  a  marsh  to  the  west  of  him 
and  the  higher  ground  on  which  Fort  George 
afterwards  stood  on  the  east.  He  threw  up  no  en- 
trenchments for  he  expected  soon  to  move  on  down 
the  lake  to  the  attack  of  Crown  Point.  He  waited 
only  on  the  stores,  cannons  and  boats  which  were 
being    slowly    and    laboriously    hauled    up    from 


16 

Fort  Edward,  on  old-fashioned  J)utcli  wagons,  to 
be  dumped  on  the  beach  ready  for  transportation. 

THE   FRENCH   AT   TICONDEROGA. 

It  happened  when  the  grand  English  expe- 
dition ag-ainst  Fort  DuQuesne  on  the  .Ohio  had 
been  defeated  by  the  Indian  ambuscade  in  July 
that  the  French  had  learned  from  reading*  the 
captured  papers  of  General  Braddock  that  there 
w^ere  men  mustering*  at  Albany  to  attack  Crown 
Point.  Immediately^  the  Baron  Dieskau,  an  experi- 
enced German  officer  and  a  field  marshal  of 
France,  having  some  regiments  of  finely  trained 
regular  soldiers  at  his  command,  was  ordered  to 
ascend  Lake  Champlain  and  oppose  General  John- 
son. It  was  expected  in  Canada  that  Dieskau 
would  capture  Fort  Edward  and  perhaps  even 
penetrate  to  Albany.  He  was  a  very  active  and 
courageous  man  whose  motto  was  "  Boldness 
wins!  "  and  he  set  out  fully  determined  to  "  mar 
the  plans  of  the  English."  When  he  had  reached 
Crown  Point  he  did  not  wait  there  to  be  attacked 
but  moved  on  and  encamped  at  Ticonderoga,  his 
forces  being  the  first  to  occupy  that  important 
point  which  commanded  both  the  carrying  place 
to  Lake  George  and  the  southern  arm  of  Lake 
Champlain,  the  only  two  ways  of  approaching 
Canada  from  the  interior  with  cannon. 

Baron  Dieskau  had  a  number  of  Indians  with 
him,  and  arrived  at  Ticonderoga^  he  urged  them 
to  go  scouting  that  he  might  know  where  the 
English  were  and  what  were  their  numbers.     But 


17 

the  Indians  ^^ould  do  nothing"  but  devour  oxen, 
hog-s  and  brandy,  until  the  impatient  Frenchman 
declared  that  it  needed  "  the  i^atience  of  an  angel 
to  get  on  with  these  devils."  At  length  a  few  of 
them  saw  fit  to  venture  near  Fort  Edward,  and 
returned  with  one  scalp  and  a  prisoner.  Captives 
plaj-ed  an  important  part  in  these  wars  around 
Lake  George,  for  in  such  a  wilderness  thej'  were 
the  only  means  of  g-aining  information,  and  for 
this  reason  they  were  known  to  the  Indians  as 
"  living  letters."  This  prisoner  was  threatened  in 
the  usually  effective  way  with  Indian  tortures  if 
he  failed  to  tell  the  truth,  but  he  risked  his  own 
life  by  telling  a  falsehood,  which  he  hoped  would 
draw  the  French  into  a  trap.  The  English  army, 
he  said,  had  retired  to  Albany  and  but  five  hun- 
dred men  remained  at  Fort  Edward,  which  was 
not  in  a  state  of  defense. 

THE  MARCH  ON  FORT  EDWARD. 

Baron  Dieskau  thought  this  his  opportunity  to 
capture  Fort  Edward.  It  was  impossible  to  take 
all  of  the  army  at  Ticonderoga  with  him  through 
the  woods  to  this  place  and  he  chose  fifteen  hun- 
dred men  for  the  expedition,  something  over  two 
hundred  French  regulars  and  nearly  fourteen  In- 
dians and  Canadians.  Each  man  carried  food  for 
eight  days  upon  his  back  and  officers  were  allowed 
no  other  baggage  than  a  spare  shirt  and  pair  of 
shoes,  a  blanket  and  a  bearskin  each.  Indians 
were  ordered  to  take  no  scalps  until  the  enemy 
was  routed,  since  ten  men  might  be  killed  while 


< 


18 

one  was  being  scalped.  The  men  ascended  in 
canoes  that  long*  arm  of  Lake  Chaniplain  run- 
ning parallel  with  Lake  George.  At  its  head  they 
left  their  canoes  and  began  their  march  through 
the  woods,  the  Indians  guiding  them  over  fallen 
trees  and  rocks,  through  underbrush  and  swamps, 
toward  the  Hudson,  the  whole  army  of  fifteen 
hundred  men  sometimes  crossing  a  stream  one  at 
a  time  on  a  log. 

Johnson  lay  at  Lake  George  in  the  confusion  of 
a  new  camp,  w^hen  his  scouts  brought  him  word 
that  a  body  of  French  and  Indians  were  marching 
through  the  woods  from  South  Bay  to  Fort  Ed- 
ward. Johnson  knew  that  the  works  at  Fort  Ed- 
ward, or  Fort  Lyman,  as  it  was  then  called,  were 
3^et  unfinished,  the  cannon  mostly  unmounted  and 
the  men  carelessly  encamped  in  various  places 
outside  the  entrenchments.  There  was  great 
danger  that  the  French  would  capture  this  post, 
in  which  case  Johnson's  army  would  be  cut  oft" 
from  supplies  and  obliged  to  capitulate.  He  hur- 
ried a  messenger  off  to  Fort  Edward  with  a  note  to 
the  commander,  in  which  he  advised  him  to  bury 
his  unmounted  cannon  and  make  a  brave  defense. 

Dieskau's  Indians  meanwhile  were  not  pleased 
with  the  idea  of  attacking  Fort  Edward.  These 
people  never  liked  open  fighting  and  they  dreaded 
cannon.  Instead  of  guiding  Dieskau  directly  to 
Fort  Edward  they  led  him  to  the  banks  of  the 
Hudson,  between  the  present  towns  of  Sandy  Hill 
and  Glens  Falls.  Here  the  new  road  ran  which 
had  so  recently  been  cut  between  Fort  Edward 


19 

and  Lake  Georg-e.  The  Indians  lay  in  wait  along 
its  edge  and  captured  the  messenger  that  John- 
son had  sent  to  warn  Fort  Edward  of  its  danger. 
They  also  killed  and  captured  some  wagon  drivers 
and  put  others  to  flight.  From  these  prisoners 
Dieskau  for  the  first  time  learned  that  there  were 
several  thousand  men  at  Lake  George.  Still  he 
would  have  marched  on  against  Fort  Edward  but 
his  Indians  objected.  There  were  cannon,  they 
said,  at  Fort  Edward  and  none  at  Lake  George.  A 
part  of  them  were  converted  Mohawks  from  near 
Montreal  and  they  did  not  like  to  go  where  they 
were  likely  to  kill  their  own  kindred.  They  ob- 
jected that  Fort  Edward  was  on  English  land; 
they  would  not  attack  the  English  on  their  own 
ground,  they  said,  but  they  were  willing  to  fight 
them  at  Lake  George,  which  was  French  soil.  Fort 
Edward  was  French  land  also,  said  Dieskau,  but 
the  Indians  denied  this.  Either  the  Baron  must  be 
content  to  beat  an  inglorious  retreat  or  march 
against  Johnson  at  Lake  George.  He  chose  to  do 
the  latter.  He  knew  that  Johnson's  men  were  raw- 
recruits,  American  farmers  in  homespun,  most  of 
whom  had  never  seen  fighting  of  any  sort,  and  like 
all  officers  from  the  Old  World,  he  believed  that 
such  men  were  very  poor  soldiers,  likely  to  run  at 
the  first  onslaught,  as  was  too  often  the  case  in- 
deed. "  The  more  there  are  the  more  we  shall 
kill,"  said  he  and  he  turned  up  the  road  to  Lake 
George  and  marched  that  day  as  far  as  Glen  Lake 
where  he  camped  for  the  night  on  the  evening  of 
the  seventh  of  September,  1755. 


20 


THE   BLOODY   MORNING   SCOUT. 

An  attack  was  the  last  thing  expected  at  Lake 
George.  The  cannon  lay  on  the  beach,  the  camp 
was  unfortified  and  the  only  anxietj'  of  the  officers 
was  for  Fort  Edward.  The  soldiers  were  farmers, 
niostl}'  armed  with  their  own  hunting  pieces,  with 
hatchets  stuck  in  their  belts  and  powder  horns 
slung  over  their  shoulders,  the  officers  were  large- 
I3'  inexperienced  in  war;  their  general,  Johnson, 
was  a  curious  mixture  of  the  country  gentleman 
and  trader;  General  Lyman  had  been  a  Yale  tutor 
and  later  a  lawyer;  Colonel  Titcomb  had  seen 
some  service  in  the  last  war,  as  had  Williams, 
a  member  of  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts, 
and  deputy  sheriff;  Seth  Pomeroj-  was  a  gun- 
smith, Kuggles  was  a  graduate  of'  Harvard,  a 
lawyer  and  an  innkeeper;  while  Putnam  and 
Stark,  future  generals  of  the  Revolution,  had 
seen  no  more  severe  conflicts  than  an  Indian 
skirmish  and  a  hand-to-hand  encounter  with  a 
she  wolf  in  a  cave.  The  officers  held  a  council  of 
war  to  decide  what  was  to  be  done  to  save  Fort 
Edward,  the  fall  of  which  would  cut  them  off 
from  home  and  supplies.  They  little  suspected 
that  the  enemy  was  about  breaking  camp  only 
four  miles  distant,  at  Glen  Lake.  The  chief  of  the 
Mohawks,  King  Hendrick,  a  fat  old  fellow  who 
had  long  been  a  w^arm  friend  of  the  English,  at- 
tended the  council.  It  was  proposed  to  send  five 
hundred  white  men  and  some  Indians  to  the  aid 
of  Fort  Edward  and  five  hundred  more  to  South 


"•-^  yc-  -h  ■■  ,  'J. -I 


*z<fx*^  >^^^»t>^^ A^**^^—  /^^37*^ 

j^^^^^^l/c^:^^  4^^-i^^i<^  Cji^^^^^^  1 


^H/l^^ 


21 

Bay,   on   Lake   Champlaiii,    to   cut   off   the    French 
from  their  boats.     But  King-  Hendrick  did  not  apA     . 
prove.     He  put  several  sticks  together  and  broke     '^^^-^ 
them;    he  then  put  a  jiumber  of  sticks  tog-ether  y^f^ 
and  showed  that  they  could  not  be   broken.     In  [  -'/z 
this  way  he  objected  to  the  force  being-  divided. J 
The  hint  was  taken  and  it  was  decided  to  send 
one  thousand  whites  and  two  hundred  Indians  to 
the  aid  of  Fort  Edward.     King-  Hendrick  still  ob- 
jected that  they  were  too   few  to   fig-ht   and  too 
many  to  be  killed,  but  since  they  were  g"oing  he 
climbed  upon  a  g-un  carriage  and  made  a  stirring- 
speech  to  the  Indian  warriors  to  g-et  them  to  fol- 
low him  to  battle. 

It  was  eight  o'clock  on  the  morning-  of  the 
eig-hth  of  September,  1755,  that  the  twelve  hundred 
men  set  forth  on  their  march  to  the  relief  of  Fort 
Edward.  The  party  was  commanded  by  Colonel 
Ephraim  Williams,  a  robust  and  heavy  man  who 
had  done  some  Indian  fig-hting-  in  the  last  war,  and 
who,  thoug-h  he  was  himself  an  uneducated  man, 
loved  learning-  so  well  that  he  had  made  a  will  at 
Albany  leaving  a  legacy  to  found  a  school,  which 
afterwards  became  Williams  College.  The  Indians 
were  led  by  King  Hendrick,  so  old  and  fat  that  he 
ambled  at  their  head  on  a  pony.  The  men 
marched  some  distance  down  the  road  and  then 
halted  for  a  portion  of  their  forces  to  come  up. 
So  certain  were  the  English  that  the  enemy  was 
no  nearer  than  Fort  Edward  that  no  scouts  were 
sent  out  and  a  straggler  going  on  ahead  during 
the  halt  was  captured  by  the  French,  advancing 


from  their  camp  of  the  nig"ht,  and  g-ave  Dieskau 
information  of  the  approaching-  body  of  men. 
The  Frencli  general  was  on  tlie  full  march  to  Lake 
George  along-  the  new  road  where  it  ran  between 
the  flanks  of  French  and  West  Mountains.  He  in- 
stantly ordered  his  men  to  drop  their  knapsacks 
and  lie  flat  on  the  ground,  the  Indians  upon  one 
side  of  the  road,  the  Canadians  upon  the  other 
and  the  French  in  the  rear.  He  hoped  that  Wil- 
liams would  march  directly  into  this  ambuscade 
and  so  be  enclosed  as  in  a  bag  and  destroyed  as 
Braddock's  army  had  been  on  the  Ohio.  And  in- 
deed the  English  and  their  Indians  came  on  care- 
lessly enough.  They  had  begun  to  enter  the  trap 
when  the  Mohawks  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  seeing 
their  brothers  of  the  Mohawk  Valley  in  advance, 
arose  and  fired  into  the  air  as  a  warning.  The 
concealed  Canadians  and  Frenchmen  immediately 
opened  fire.  Many  of  the  English  party  dropped 
under  the  deadly  volley  and  their  front  ranks  fell 
back,  "  doubled  up  like  a  pack  of  cards."  There 
was  great  confusion.  King  Hendrick  was  killed, 
and  Colonel  Wiliams,  running  up  a  little  eminence 
and  climbing  upon  a  boulder  to  encourage  his 
men,  was  struck  down  where  his  monument  now 
stands.  Completely  taken  by  surprise  as  they 
were,  Williams'  forces  were  soon  routed  and 
fell  back  toward  the  lake,  pursued  by  the 
French  and  Indians.  Some  of  the  men  were,  how- 
ever, rallied  by  Lieutenant-Colonel  Whiting,  and 
with  the  aid  of  a  party  sent  out  from  Johnson's 
camp  at  the  lake  and  some  Mohawk  Indians  cov- 


23 

ered  the  retreat,  fig-hting-  from  behind  trees  in 
true  Indian  fashion  and  falling  slowly  back 
toward  the  lake.  The  fugitives  reached  the  camp 
first,  then  those  who  carried  the  wounded  and 
finally  this  plucky  body  of  men  after  delivering 
their  last  volley,  three-fourths  of  a  mile  from  the 
lake,  arrived  in  good  order.  This  affair  was  long 
known  as  the  "  bloody  morning  scout." 

THE   BATTLE    OF    LAKE    GEORGE. 

At  the  camp  at  Lake  George  no  one  suspected 
the  neighborhood  of  the  enemy  until  about  nine 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  when  firing  was  heard  at 
the  ambush  about  three  miles  south.  Then  at 
last  these  untried  men  realized  their  danger  and 
went  to  work  in  all  haste  to  build  some  sort  of  a 
rude  defense.  They  dragged  boats  and  wagons  to 
their  front  and  with  them  and  the  newly  felled 
trunks  and  branches  of  trees  built  the  hastiest 
sort  of  a  barricade  about  their  camp,  hauling  up 
cannon  from  the  beach  for  it's  defense.  There 
were  not  more  than  seventeen  hundred  effective 
men  of  them  and  they  were  a  good  deal  demoral- 
ized by  the  morning's  rout,  so  that  a  brisk  assault 
at  this  moment  would  probably  have  carried  the 
improvised  works,  boats,  wagons,  cannon  and  all, 

Dieskau  guessed  that  a  surprise  would  be  too 
much  for  these  raw  Xew^  York  and  Xew  England 
levies  and  he  had  intended  to  chase  the  fugitives 
to  their  very  camp  and  enter  it  with  them  pell- 
mell,  but  his  Canadians  and  Indians  were  an  un- 
manageable sort  of  troops,  trying  to  the  soul  of  a 


24 

French  field  marshal.  They  had  scattered  every- 
where through  the  woods  in  pursuit  of  the. retreat- 
ing" Engflish  and  were  already  plundering*  and 
scalping-  the  dead.  Dieskau  called  a  halt  not  far 
from  the  lake  and  caused  a  trumpet  to  be  blown 
to  call  in  the  scattered  men.  The  Indians  and 
Canadians  came  in  but  slowl^^  unwilling"  to  in- 
volve themselves  in  a  fresh  fig"ht;  for  Indians 
never  tempt  their  luck  by  following-  up  a  success, 
and  the  Canadians  had  been  taught  in  the  school 
of  Indian  warfare.  The  morning's  victory  was 
enough  for  them,  but  Dieskau  insisted  and  they 
followed  sullenly  in  the  rear  of  the  French  regu- 
lar troops  as  the  latter  marched  briskly  up  the 
road  to  Lake  George. 

Presently  the  farmer  soldiers  behind  their 
wagons  and  upturned  boats  at  the  Lake  George 
camp  saw  the  French  coming  up  the  road  in"  beau- 
tiful order,  their  white  uniforms  and  polished 
arms  glistening  in  the  sun.  As  they  approached 
from  the  front  the  Indians  came  around  through 
the  woods  on  the  left  of  the  encampment  and 
charged  down  the  hill  where  Fort  George  after- 
wards stood,  yelling  and  whooping  in  their  own 
blood  curdling  manner.  It  was  too  much  for  the 
untried  men  in  Johnson's  little  army;  some  of 
them  slunk  back,  but  their  officers  drew  their 
swords  and  threatened  to  run  them  through  if 
they  did  not  stand  to  their  posts.  At  this  moment 
an  assault  would  have  won  the  day;  but  Indians 
have  no  stomach  for  this  sort  of  fighting.  In- 
stead, they  scattered  about  the  camp,  after  their 


25 

manner,  each  man  behind  a  tree  and  firing-  on  his 
own  account.  The  French  deployed,  formed 
among  the  trees  in  the  front  and  fired.  But  the 
English  cannon,  under  the  command  of  a  good 
officer,  Captain  Eyre,  greeted  them  with  dis- 
charges of  grape  shot  which  made  "  streets,  lanes 
and  alleys  "  through  the  ranks  of  the  French  and 
compelled  them  to  seek  a  place  of  greater  shelter. 
On  they  came  again,  however,  and  there  was  a  hot 
and  steady  fire  on  both  sides,  which  seemed  to  the 
unaccustomed  ears  of  a  surgeon  in  the  English 
camp  like  "  nothing  but  thunder  and  lightning 
and  perpetual  pillars  of  smoke."  Johnson  soon 
retired  to  his  tent  with  a  flesh  wound  in  the  thigh 
and  Lyman,  lawyer  though  he  was,  staid  in  the 
thick  of  the  fight  for  about  four  hours,  encourag- 
ing the  men.  They  were  getting  into  the  spirit  of 
the  thing  by  this  time.  As  the  wounded  were 
carried  to  the  rear,  the  wagoners  in  the  camp 
seized  their  guns  and  powder  horns  and  joined 
in  the  fight,  while  some  of  the  men  who  ran  out 
of  ammunition  "  picked  up  the  enemy's  and  gen- 
erously returned  it  to  them." 

A  body  of  Indians  now  opened  fire  from  the 
commanding  hill  where  Fort  William  Henry  was 
afterwards  built,  but  a  few  shell  dropped  among 
them  scattered  them.  For  two  hours  Dieskau  at- 
tacked the  front  and  left  of  the  English  cam]).  lie 
then  came  around  to  the  right  and  for  two  hours 
more  the  struggle  was  at  this  point,  where  were 
the  regiments  of  Colonel  Kuggles,  of  Titcomb 
and  of  the  dead  Williams.     Titcomb  was  killed  at 


26 

this  point,  fighting-  from  behind  a  tree  in  advance 
of  the  barricade,  in  true  frontier  lasliion.  Once 
more  the  French  returned  to  tiie  front  and  tried 
to  g-ain  the  rear,  but  some  well  directed  shot  from 
a  thirty-two  pounder  "  made  them  shift  their 
berth."  The  French  regulars,  who  had  borne  the 
brunt  of  the  fight,  were  badly  cut  to  pieces  but 
the  doughty  Baron  would  not  give  up  the  day. 
At  length  he  was  shot  in  the  leg.  His  adjutant, 
^Montreuil,  was  washing  tlie  wound  with  brandy, 
after  the  practice  of  the  day,  when  the  unfortu- 
nate general  was  hit  in  the  knee  and  in  the  thigh. 
The  Baron  was  helped  to  a  sitting  posture  behind 
a  tree,  and  Montreuil  fetched  two  Canadians  to 
carry  him  off,  but  one  of  them  was  shot  and  fell 
dead  across  Dieskau,  who  in  agony  from  his  in- 
juries and  wounded  pride,  cursed  the  Indian  and 
Canadian  troops  for  cowards  and  authors  of  the 
misfortunes  of  the  day  and  ordered  Montreuil  to 
leave  him  and  lead  the  French  once  more  against 
the  English,  saying  that  here  was  as  good  a 
deathbed  as  any  for  him. 

It  was  about  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  when 
ISIontreuil  took  command  of  the  French  forces. 
They  were  alreadj^  wavering  and  no  sooner  did 
the  hardy  .American  frontiersmen  in  the  English 
camp  percei\e  this  than  they  scaled  their  bar- 
ricades and  rushed  upon  them  with  clubbed  mus- 
kets and  hatchets.  There  was  nothing  left  for 
Montreuil  but  to  lead  a  retreat.  'J'he  Frenchmen 
took  to  the  woods  and  nuule  their  way  around 
the  south  end  of  French  mountain,  dropping  their 


27 

accoutrements  as  the3'  fled.  Their  flig-ht  prob- 
ably gave  its  name  to  the  mountain  thoug-h  I 
have  heard  it  ascribed  by  an  old  inhabitant  to  the 
fact  that  two  Frenchmen  once  spent  some  months 
on  the  miountain  where  they  were  believed  to  have 
recovered  some  treasure  buried  by  these  fugitives, 
unlikely  as  it  is  that  men  laden  with  their  own 
provisions  would  have  lug-g-ed  valuables  about  with 
them  in  a  wilderness  or  climbed  a  mountain  to 
conceal  it  on  a  precipitate  flight.  It  is  certain 
that  the  fug-itive  French,  having-  left  their  knap- 
sacks behind  them,  suffered  greatly  for  food  be- 
fore they  reached  South  Bay  where  they  took  to 
their  canoes  and  paddled  back  to  Ticonderoga. 

The  battle  of  Lake  George  will  be  forever 
memorable  as  the  first  struggle  in  which  the  un- 
trained farmers  of  America  faced  the  finely  drilled 
troops  of  the  Old  World  and  learned  the  courage 
which  afterwards  led  them  to  dare  to  bring  on  the 
struggle  of  the  Revolution. 

THE  BLOODY  POND  FIGHT. 

^lany  of  the  Indians  and  Canadians  of  Dies- 
kau's  army  were  in  no  such  haste  as  their  French 
comrades.  Before  the  battle  at  the  lake  was  over 
they  had  deserted  the  fight  and  returned  to  the 
battlefield  of  the  morning  to  scalp  and  plunder 
the  dead. 

The  commandant  at  Fort  Edward,  knowing 
nothing  of  the  danger  which  had  threatened  him 
but  hearing  of  the  wagoners  who  had  been  killed 
on  the  road,  sent  out  a  party  of  sixty  men  to  scour 


28 

the  woods.  This  party  returned  with  the  report 
that  firing-  had  been  heard  toward  Lake  George, 
wherenjjon  some  two  hundred  men  under  Captains 
Folsom  and  McGinnis  were  ordered  to  march  to 
the  assistance  of  General  Johnson.  Advancing-  up 
the  Lake  George  road,  these  men  found  the  French 
knapsacks  and  baggage  lying  on  the  ground  where 
they  had  been  dropped  before  the  ambush  of  the 
morning-.  On  a  hill  were  a  few  Indians  on  the 
lookout,  but  the  Fort  Edward  party  contrived  to 
get  between  them  and  the  baggage.  Further  on 
they  came  upon  the  enemy  seated  on  the  margin 
of  a  little  pool  in  the  woods,  resting  and  waiting 
no  doubt  to  see  what  would  be  the  fate  of  their 
deserted  comrades  at  the  lake  before  they  made 
good  their  retreat  with  their  booty.  There  were 
three  hundred  of  the  Canadians  and  Indians  and 
but  two  hundred  and  ten  of  the  Foi:t  Edward  men, 
but  the  latter  were  mostly  cool  frontiersmen  and  a 
deadlj'  aim.  They  fell  upon  the  others  around  the 
pool  and  a  sharp  fight  ensued  in  which  one  of  the 
leaders,  Captain  McGinnis,  was  mortally  wounded 
but  did  not  cease  to  give  orders  until  the  Cana- 
dians and  Indians  fled,  when  he  fainted  and  was 
carried  on  horse  to  Lake  George,  there  to  die.  The 
Fort  Edward  men  reached  the  battlefield  at  this 
place  in  time  to  see  the  last  of  the  French  rout. 
Because  of  the  stubborn  struggle  around  the  dark 
little  pool  in  the  woods,  and  because,  as  it  is  said, 
the  dead  were  afterwards  thrown  into  it  as  a  sim- 
|)le  method  of  l)urial  it  got  the  nnnio  of  F.loody 
I'ond,  and  krcj)s  it  lo  this  (hiy. 


29 


BARON    DIESKAU'S   DANGER. 

The  wounded  general,  a  field  marshal  of  France 
and  a  German  nobleman,  was  left  alone  on  the 
forest  battlefield  at  the  close  of  the  day's  action. 
He  had  caused  his  laced  hat  and  coat  to  be  laid 
beside  him,  probablj^  with  the  idea  that  they 
would  indicate  his  rank  to  those  who  found  him. 
The  first  man  to  observe  him  skulked  cautiously 
up  and  took  shelter  behind  a  tree,  as  was  common 
in  Indian  and  frontier  warfare.  The  battle  was 
scarcely  over  and  it  was  a  question  whether  the 
fellow  would  not  murder  him,  so  Dieskau  put  his 
hand  to  his  pocket  for  his  watch  to  offer  it  as  a 
bribe.  Instantly  the  man  fired,  supposing  that 
the  wounded  of&cer  was  about  to  draw  a  pistol. 
The  ball  penetrated  the  hips  and  perforated  the 
bladder  of  the  unfortunate  general. 

"  You  rascal,  why  did  you  fire?  "  the  Baron  de- 
manded. "  You  see  a  man  lying  in  his  blood  on 
the  ground  and  you  shoot  him." 

"  How  did  I  know,"  the  fellow  answered,  in 
broken  English,  for  he  was  a  renegade  French- 
man. "  How  did  I  know  you  did  not  have  a  pis- 
tol? I  had  rather  kill  the  devil  than  have  the 
devil  kill  me." 

"You  are  a  Frenchman!  "  exclaimed  Dieskau. 

"  Yes,"  was  the  reply,  "  it  is  more  than  ten 
years  since  I  left  Canada." 

Several  of  those  harpees  who  haunt  a  battle- 
field now  fell  upon  the  wounded  general  and  be- 
gan to  strip  him  of  his  clothes,  but  he  soon  per- 


30 

suaded  them  to  carry  him  to  their  general,  which 
they  did,  eight  of  them  bearing  him  in  a  blanket 
to  Johnson's  tent,  who  when  he  learned  that  the 
French  commander  was  his  prisoner,  called  for 
surgeons  and  refused  to  have  his  own  wound 
treated  until  those  of  the  suffering  Baron  were 
attended  to. 

A  new  danger  now  awaited  Dieskau,  which  he 
did  not  suspect.  Those  troublesome  allies,  the  In- 
dians, were  drunk  with  revenge,  as  was  usual  with 
them  after  a  battle.  The  morning's  losses  had 
fallen  heavily  on  them  and  forty  out  of  two  hun- 
dred had  been  slain,  including  several  important 
chiefs.  They  had  had  no  appetite  for  the  struggle 
of  the  afternoon  but  looked  on  while  the  battle 
raged,  saying  that  they  were  come  to  see  their 
English  brothers  fight.  At  the  close  of  the  day 
they  invaded  the  battlefield  and  took  seventy 
scalps;  but  they  were  still  enraged  though  far 
from  being  so  high  spirited  as  their  English 
brothers  could  have  wished.  Some  of  them  now 
walked  into  General  Johnson's  camp  as  freely  as 
they  had  been  wont  to  haunt  his  mansion  on 
the  Mohawk.  The  suffering  Dieskau,  lying  on 
Johnson's  pallet,  could  not  understand  their 
talk  but  he  observed  by  their  voices  that  they 
were  angry  and  saw  that  they  cast  sullen  glances 
at  him  from  time  to  time  as  they  talked.  When 
they  were  gone  he  asked  Johnson  what  they 
wanted. 

"  What  do  they  want?  "  repeated  Johnson. 
"To  burn  you,  by  God;    eat  you  and  smoke  you 


31 

in  tiieir  pipes,  in  revenge  for  the  three  or  four  of 
their  chiefs  that  ^vere  l^illed.  But  do  not  fear, 
you  shall  be  safe  with  me  or  they  will  kill  us 
both." 

Dieskau  wished  to  be  removed  lest  he  should  in- 
commode his  host,  but  Johnson  said:  "  I  dare  not 
move  you,  for  if  I  did  so  the  Indians  would  mas- 
sacre you.     They  must  have  time  to  sleep." 

These  worthies  came  into  the  tent  again  at 
eleven  o'clock  at  night.  Their  voices  were  very 
menacing,  but  no  one  knew  better  how  to  manage 
them  than  did  Johnson,  and  at  last  they  seemed 
quieted,  and  came  and  shook  hands  with  the 
wounded  general  before  leaving.  It  was  now 
midnight  and  Johnson  caused  Dieskau  to  be  re- 
moved to  a  colonel's  tent  under  guard  of  a  cap- 
tain and  fifty  men.  The  men  on  guard  were 
charged  to  let  no  Indian  into  the  tent  but  when 
morning  had  come  and  one  presented  himself 
unarmed  they  let  him  pass.  Xo  sooner,  however, 
was  the  rascal  in  than  he  dre^v  a  naked  sword  out 
from  under  his  cloak  and  sprang  at  the  wounded 
general.  But  the  Colonel  was  too  quick  for  him: 
he  threw  himself  between  the  savage  and  his 
victim,  disarmed  the  fellow  and  pushed  him  out 
of  the  tent. 

With  this  last  adventure  Dieskau's  danger  from 
the  Indians  was  over,  for  nothing  could  induce 
them  to  remain  longer  at  Lake  George.  They 
must  go  home,  they  said,  to  cheer  their  people 
after  the  death  of  so  many  warriors  and  Johnson 
was  obliged  to  present  them  %vith  two  pieces  of 


32 

black  blanketing"  with  which  to  cover  the  graves 
of  the  dead,  according-  to  Indian  customs  of  con- 
dolence. 

When  Baron  Dieskau  had  sufficiently'  recovered 
to  bear  the  journey  he  was  carried  to  New  York 
on  a  litter.  He  was  for  some  time  a  prisoner  in 
Eng-land  and  afterwards  returned  to  France  where 
he  died  twelve  j^ears  to  a  day  after  the  battle  of 
Lake  Georg-e,  of  the  eifects  of  the  wounds  received 
on  that  field. 

The  French  in  Canada  were  g-reatly  g-rieved 
over  the  defeat  of  Dieskau  and  now  that  it  had 
failed  were  ready  to  call  his  expedition  "  a  piece 
of  bravado."  They  were  disg"usted  that  "  so 
g-lorious  a  trophy  "  as  a  French  field  marshal 
should  have  been  left  on  the  field  of  battle  and 
wished  that  he  mig-ht  have  been  brought  off, 
"  dead  or  alive." 

HOLDING   LAKE   GEORGE. 

The  battle  of  Lake  Georg-e  caused  the  expe- 
dition against  Crown  Point  to  be  abandoned,  as 
perhaps  it  would  soon  have  been  in  any  case  be- 
cause of  the  lateness  of  the  season  and  the  diffi- 
culty of  bringing  up  the  necessary  stores  from 
Albany.  The  murder  of  some  teamsters  near  Fort 
Edward  before  the  battle  and  the  alarm  of  the 
French  invasion  caused  those  who  had  Avagons 
and  horses  to  hide  them  and  drivers  to  decline 
the  perilous  service.  Most  of  the  provisions  for 
the  expedition  were  still  at  Albany-;  the  greater 
part  of  the   ammunition  and  boats,  remained  at 


Fort  Edward,  and  a  few  jaded  horses  were  all  that 
Johnson  could  command. 

The  battle  had  another  result  for  the  Eng-lish. 
They  began  to  fortify  themselves  on  Lake  Georg-e. 
The  spirited  attack  of  Dieskau  had  taught  them 
the  necessity  of  this.  Entrenchments  were 
thrown  up  around  the  camp  and  a  fort  was  beg"un 
on  a  rise  of  ground  on  the  lake  shore,  in  the  east- 
ern part  of  the  present  grounds  of  the  Fort  Wil- 
liam Henry  Hotel.  Johnson  named  this  post 
William  Henry  after  a  young  English  prince,  th€ 
King's  grandson,  and  rechristened  the  fort  at  the 
Great  Carrying  Place,  Fort  Edward,  after  another 
young  prince,  though  it  had  been  known  for  some 
months  as  Fort  Lyman,  in  honor  of  the  brave 
officer  of  that  name. 

While  Fort  William  Henry  was  building  the 
French  were  entrenching  themselves  at  Ticon- 
deroga,  so  that  they  now  commanded  one  end  of 
Lake  George  and  the  English  the  other.  Here  the 
rival  powers  were  nearer  each  other  than  at  any 
other  point,  onl^'  something  over  thirty  miles  of 
placid  water  flowing  between  them. 

"Wlien  Johnson  had  first  heard  of  the  intended 
French  invasion  he  had  asked  for  more  men. 
These  came  in  October.  They  were  dressed  in 
summer  clothing,  with  no  covering  but  one  thin 
homemade  blanket  each,  and  they  shivered  in 
their  camp  as  winter  came  on  apace  in  this  cold 
northern  climate.  They  were  a  disorderly  lot  of 
newly-levied  men  who  had  been  reared  in  the 
half-wild  freedom  and  equality  of  a  new  laud,  and 


34 

their  officers,  chosen  by  the  men  from  among 
themselves,  commanded  no  respect.  When  the 
cold  November  rains  set  in  and  muddy  water 
stood  in  the  tents  they  clubbed  their  muskets  and 
marched  off  in  squads.  The  camp  finally  broke 
up  on  the  twenty-seventh  of  the  month,  and  a 
few  men  from  each  of  the  northern  colonies  were 
left  to  hold  the  post,  while  the  rest  marched  off 
down  the  road  to  Fort  Edward,  insulting-  their 
colonel  by  the  way. 

In  the  next  summer,  that  of  1756,  the  English 
meant  at  least  to  capture  Ticonderoga,  by  way  of 
Lake  George.  Again  a  great  many  men  got  to- 
gether at  Albany,  and  seven  thousand  of  them 
slowly  made  their  waj"^  up  the  Hudson  toward 
Lake  Georg-e,  pestered  on  their  waj'  by  gangs  of 
Indians  who  discouraged  straggling  by  scalping 
the  stragglers.  The  new  Fort  Williami  Henry  was 
in  command  of  Colonel  Jonathan  Bagley,  a  jocular 
fellow,  who,  when  he  was  ordered  to  hurr}'  on 
the  boat  building  which  was  now  in  progress  at 
Lake  George,  answered  that  "  every  wheel  " 
should  go  "  that  rum  and  human  flesh  could 
move."  But,  in  spite  of  honest  Bagley's  efforts, 
the  campaign  jiroved  a  failure,  for  there  was 
a  deal  of  confusion  about  provisions  besides  a 
change  of  commanders  at  midsummer,  which  was 
no  improvement,  and  the  English  troops,  like  the 
King  of  France  and  his  forty  thousand  men  in 
the  nursery  rhyme,  having  marched  up  the  Hud- 
son, marched  down  again  at  the  end  of  the  season, 
]but  not  without  leaving  many  dead  behind  them 


35 

at  their  unsanitary  camping  places.  The  French, 
left  unmolested  at  Ticonderoga,  amused  them- 
selves with  fishing  and  hunting  the  ducks,  geese, 
partridges,  beavers  and  clouds  of  wild  pigeons 
which  they  found   there. 

SCOUTING  ON  I^AKE    GEORGE. 

Lake  George  was  now  the  center  of  warfare. 
Ticonderoga  swarmed  with  Indians  from  the 
northwest  who  made  their  way  with  ease  over 
the  immense  system  of  waterways  commanded 
by  the  French  to  this  "  nest  of  hornets."  From 
here  they  fell  upon  the  thinlj^  peopled  back  set- 
tlements of  the  English  with  fire  and  the  hatchet. 
Wild  Pottawatomies  ascended  Lake  George  to  pick 
off  the  sentinels  at  Fort  William  Henry  with 
their  stone-headed  arrows,  and  once  an  English 
captain  and  fifty  men  were  caught  in  an  ambush 
not  far  from  the  latter  fort,  and  only  six  escaped 
to  tell  the  tale. 

The  English  garrison  at  Fort  William  Henry 
had  no  Indians  to  send  on  like  errands  against 
Ticonderoga;  no  one  to  annoy  the  enemy  and 
render  him  more  wary;  no  one  to  capture  an 
occasional  prisoner  from  whom  they  might  learn 
what  the  French  were  doing  and  what  were  their 
numbers.  The  English  were  never  so  successful 
as  the  French  in  managing  their  Indian  neigh- 
bors. They  might  count  themselves  lucky  that 
they  had  Sir  William  Johnson  to  keep  the  Iroquois 
from  going  bodily  over  to  the  French.  These  In- 
dians declined  to  scout  about  posts  and  gradually 


36 

there  grew  up  among-  the  English  colonists  a 
body  of  hardy  and  adventurous  rangers,  whose 
headquarters  were  at  Lake  George.  Among  these 
men  were  Stark  and  Putnam,  afterwards  gen- 
erals in  the  war  of  the  Revolution.  Sturdy 
frontiersmen  they  were,  adventurous  hunters  and 
Indian  fighters.  The  most  famous  of  them  all, 
and  their  leader,  was  Robert  Rogers,  a  man  who 
had  smuggled  goods  through  the  waters  of  Lake 
George  before  the  war.  In  this  doubtful  trade 
he  had  learned  to  speak  French,  and,  what  was  of 
more  importance,  knew  the  forests  and  mountains 
of  these  inland  water  courses  by  heart.  His  char- 
acter was  not  an  admirable  one.  Later  in  life  he 
was  suspected  of  dishonesty  and  treason,  but  he 
was  a  man  of  a  good  deal  of  natural  ability,  and 
never  was  there  a  better  scout. 

Rogers  and  the  hardy  rangers  of  whom  he  was 
captain  skated  in  the  winter  time  down  Lake 
George  or  clambered  over  drifts  in  their  snow- 
shoes  and  approached  Ticonderoga  to  take  dar- 
ing observations  of  the  works  or  intercept  some 
small  party  of  the  garrison.  During  the  open 
season  they  descended  Lake  George  in  boats,  and 
if  at  its  lower  end  they  discerned  signs  of  the 
enemy  they  laid  by  and  feigned  to  be  fishermen 
until  night  gave  them  a  chance  of  escape.  Quick- 
ness and  stealth  they  practised,  like  their  Indian 
forerunners  on  these  waters,  and  above  all  things 
they  dreaded  a  light  snowfall  in  which  they  might 
be  tracked,  for  their  service  was  an  exceedingly 
perilous  one.     Rogers,  however,  made  light  of  its 


37 

perils  and  called  a  stealthy  journey  to  Ticon- 
deroga,  making-  a  visit  to  his  "  old  friends,  the 
French  guard,"  who  knew  him  indeed  only  too 
well.  Once  he  and  several  others  boldly  marched 
up  to  a  sentinel  whose  challenge  Rogers  answered 
in  French. 

"  Qui  etes  vous?  "  demanded  the  puzzled  fellow. 

"  Rogers  I  "  replied  the  famous  scout,  and  he 
hurried  him  off  a  prisoner  to  where  his  boats  lay- 
hidden  at  the  foot  of  the  lake  for  the  return  trip 
to  Fort  William  Henry. 

In  June  of  1756,  Rogers  was  ordered  by  the 
English  general,  then  making  ready  for  a  blow  at 
Ticonderoga  which  never  was  struck,  to  go  to 
Lake  Champlain  and  intercept  provisions  and  par- 
ties of  the  enemy.  Rogers  selected  for  his  pur- 
pose fifty  men  and  five  whale  boats.  The  party 
embarked  on  the  beach  at  the  head  of  Lake  George 
and  descended  the  lake  until  nightfall  when  they 
all  encamped  on  an  island.  The  next  day  they 
made  for  a  point  on  the  east  shore,  carried  their 
boats  over  the  mountains  and  launched  them  in 
South  Bay;  they  descended  this  southern  arm 
of  Lake  Champlain  at  night  and  when  morning 
came  they  hid  their  boats  within  six  miles  of 
Ticonderoga.  All  day  they  lay  in  hiding  and  at 
night  they  slipped  by  the  hostile  fort.  They 
could  hear  the  sentinels  at  Ticonderoga  calling 
to  one  another  and  they  counted  the  camp  fires 
to  judge  of  the  numbers  of  the  French  force  at 
this  post.  They  hid  their  boats  for  the  day  five 
miles  below  Ticonderoga  and  the  next  night  at- 


38 

tempted  to  pass  Crown  Point,  but  the  sky  was  so 
clear  that  they  feared  being  discovered  and  re- 
turned to  their  hiding*  place  for  another  day.  As 
they  laj'  hidden  in  the  woods  on  the  margin  of 
the  lake  they  saw  one  hundred  boats  pass  up 
and  down  between  the  two  French  forts  and  once 
seven  boat  loads  of  French  soldiers  were  about 
to  land  at  their  verj'  hiding-  place,  but  finally 
chose  a  spot  farther  on,  where  they  might  be  seen 
eating  their  dinner  all  unconscious  of  the  lurking 
enemy. 

The  next  night  found  the  rangers  in  their  boats 
once  more  and  this  time  they  slipped  safely  by  be- 
tween Crown  and  Chimney  Points  under  cover  of 
the  darkness  and  landed  ten  miles  below.  The  fol- 
lowing day  as  they  lay  concealed  thej'  saw  thirty 
boats  and  a  schooner  pass  down  the  lake  on  the 
way  to  Canada.  Thej'  descended  the  lake  fifteen 
miles  farther  before  they  dared  attempt  anything 
and  then  they  lightened  their  boats  and  prepared 
for  the  attack  of  a  schooner  lying  a  mile  below 
them;  but  two  lighters  meantime  came  in  sight 
and  made  for  Rogers'  hiding  place.  The  rangers 
fired  upon  them  and  offered  quarter  but  the  crews 
pushed  for  the  opposite  shore  and  Rogers  gave 
them  chase.  He  captured  the  two  vessels  and 
sank  them,  with  their  cargoes  of  flour,  wine  and 
brandy,  though  not  until  he  had  prudently  hidden 
a  few  of  the  brandy  casks  in  the  woods,  for  future 
use.  There  were  twelve  men  on  the  two  boats, 
three  of  whom  were  killed  and  one  wounded. 
With  heartlessness  worthy  of  an  Indian,  Rogers 
4 


3y 

dispatched  the  wounded  man,  since  he  was  unable 
to  walk  and  if  left  behind  would  g-ive  the  alarm 
and  cause  a  pursuit  of  the  rangers.  The  prisoners 
said  they  belonged  to  a  detachment  of  five  hun- 
dred men  who  were  not  far  behind.  When  Rogers 
heard  this  he  made  haste  to  hide  his  boats  and 
struck  through  the  woods  for  Fort  William  Henry 
which  he  reached  with  eight  prisoners  and  four 
scalps,  for  these  men  imitated  the  Indians  even 
to  the  taking-  of  these  hateful  trophies.  "  It  is 
an  abominable  kind  of  war,"  said  a  French  officer 
who  had  witnessed  Indian  cruelties  at  Ticon- 
deroga.  "  The  air  one  breathes  is  contagious  of 
insensibility  and  hardness." 

Rogers  afterwards  retraced  his  way  through 
the  woods  to  his  boats,  and  no  doubt  to  his 
brandy,  descended  Lake  Champlain  almost  as  far 
as  its  foot,  took  three  prisoners,  hid  his  boats 
once  more  and  returned  to  Fort  William  Henry  a 
second  time  without  having*  been  discovered.  A 
month  later  the  French  were  astonished  to  find 
some  English  boats  in  a  cove  eight  miles  north 
of  Crown  Point.  They  could  not  understand 
how  they  got  there  and  sent  out  exploring  parties 
to  see  if  there  were  not  some  unknown  water 
passage  around  Crown  Point  and  Ticonderoga. 

A  ^VINTER    ATTACK   ON   FORT  TTILLIAM   HENRY. 

The  battle  of  Lake  George  had  taught  both  the 
French  and  the  English  caution,  and  the  mid- 
winter of  1757  found  them  watching  one  another 
from  either  end  of  Lake  George,  which  was  frozen 


40 

as  smooth  as  a  floor.  Montcalm,  the  new  French 
general  did  not  propose  to  imitate  the  rash  ex- 
ample of  Dieskau,  but  the  Governor  of  Canada, 
Avho  had  had  far  less  experience,  was  more  enter- 
prising, and  planned  a  winter  attack  upon  Fort 
William  Henrj',  of  which  he  hoped  to  gain  the 
honors  by  placing  his  brother  in  command.  In 
February  a  body  of  French  and  Canadian  soldiers 
and  some  Abenaki  Indians  marched  up  Lake 
Champlain  on  the  ice,  dressed  in  overcoats,  moc- 
casins and  mittens  and  dragging  sleds  laden  with 
bearskins  and  blankets  for  bedding;  kettles  for 
cooking;  old  sails  by  waj'  of  tents;  provisions, 
and  a  change  of  moccasins  and  mittens.  These 
men  rested  for  a  week  at  Ticonderoga,  where 
they  made  three  hundred  scaling  ladders.  It  was 
the  fifteenth  day  of  March,  1757,  and  still  winter 
in  this  northern  latitude,  when  they  marched  out 
from  Ticonderoga  and  began  to  ascend  Lake 
George.  On  the  evening  of  the  eighteenth  they 
halted  under  the  edg'e  of  a  mountain,  three  miles 
from  the  head  of  the  lake. 

There  were  about  three  hundred  and  fort}-  ef- 
fective men  in  Fort  William  Henry,  commanded 
by  Major  Eyre,  a  good  engineer,  one  of  the  few 
officers  who  had  escaped  Braddock's  defeat,  and 
the  man  who  had  served  the  artillery  so  well  at 
the  Battle  of  Lake  George.  The  works  were  not 
strong;  outside  the  fort  were  a  hospital,  a  saw- 
mill, a  number  of  boats  which  had  been  built  the 
year  before  for  the  attack  on  Ticonderoga,  piles  of 
wood  and  lumber,  some  sloops  which  were  frozen 


41 

into  the  ice  and  one  which  was  still  on  the  stocks. 
The  regular  soldiers  in  the  fort  were  Irishmen 
and  were  hardly  recovered  from  a  spree  with 
which  they  had  celebrated  St.  Patrick's  Day. 
Their  American  comrades,  the  rangers,  would 
gladly  have  joined  in  the  jubilation  but  Captain 
Stark,  who  was  then  commanding  them,  pru- 
dently spent  the  holiday  in  his  tent,  with  a  lame 
hand  which  troubled  him  so  much  that  he  was 
unable  to  write  orders  for  extra  rations  of  rum 
at  the  request  of  his  men.  These  unwillingly 
sober  fellows  were  on  guard  on  the  night  of  the 
eighteenth,  and  it  was  they  who  detected  a  sound 
of  distant  chopping,  down  the  lake,  as  the  French 
replenished  their  camp  fires  at  one  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  Two  hours  later  the  sentinels,  on  the 
alert  now,  heard  the  sound  of  many  footsteps  on 
the  icy  floor  of  the  lake's  surface.  The  French 
had  depended  on  a  surprise,  for  Canadian  and 
Indian  troops  could  not  be  counted  on  for  an 
assault  in  any  other  case;  but  they  knew  that 
they  were  discovered  when  they  heard  the 
'*  \Yhos  "  of  the  w^atchful  garrison.  Shortly  after- 
wards the  fort  cannon  were  discharged  into  the 
darkness  in  the  direction  of  the  telltale  footfalls, 
and  no  more  was  heard  at  the  fort  of  the  be- 
sieging force  that  night. 

The  next  day  the  French  surrounded  the  fort, 
at  a  safe  distance,  and  sent  a  body  of  Indians  to  oc- 
cup3'  the  road  which  led  to  Fort  Edward.  They 
kept  up  a  harmless,  distant  fire  that  day  and  under 
cover  of  the  night  again  approached  by  the  ice. 


42 

Again  tiaey  were  greeted  with  a  discharg'e  of 
grape  and  round  shot  and  once  more  they  retired, 
contenting  themselves  with  setting  fire  to  the 
sloops  which  lay  frozen  in  the  lake  and  the  small 
boats  along  the  shore  which  had  been  built  at 
the  expense  of  so  much  "  rum  and  human  flesh," 
the  summer  before.  Some  of  the  English  soldiers 
sallied  forth  and  attempted  to  save  them,  but  it 
was  too  late.  The  next  day  the  French  lay  quietly 
in  the  woods  until  noon,  when  they  all  marched 
across  the  lake  at  a  safe  distance,  holding  up  their 
scaling  ladders  to  view,  like  an  army  in  a  play. 
Several  men  were  sent  toward  the  fort,  waving  a 
red  flag.  Major  Eyre  dispatched  a  party  to  meet 
the  flag,  which  presently  returned  with  a  blind- 
folded French  officer,  who  bore  a  summons  to 
surrender.  The  summons  was  accompanied  by  the 
usual  threat  of  an  Indian  massacre  in  case  of  re- 
sistance, but  Major  Eyre  paid  no  heed  to  this, 
merely  rep)lying  that  he  intended  to  defend  Fort 
William  Henry  to  the  last.  The  Frenchman  re- 
turned with  the  message,  and  the  armj'  on  the  ice 
approached  as  if  to  carry  out  their  threat  of  an 
assault,  but  only  fired  a  harmless  volley  against 
the  wall  of  the  fort  and  retired.  At  night  the 
French  were  once  more  heard  upon  the  ice  and 
the  garrison  prepared  for  the  promised  assault; 
but  the  enemy  was  contented  with  falling  upon 
the  huts,  storehouses,  hospital,  sawmill,  lumber 
and  wood  which  lay  without  the  fort,  building 
fires  of  pitch  pine  against  them  and  burning  all 
to  the  ground,  not  without  hopes  that  the  flames 


4iJ 

would  spread  to  the  wooden  walls  of  the  fort 
itself.  The  falling-  cinders  did  indeed  threaten 
the  soldiers'  barracks,  and  the  men  were  forced  to 
tear  the  roofs  off  these  buildings  to  save  them. 

The  next  day  a  moist  snow  fell  and  the  French 
staid  in  their  camp,  but  on  the  day  following-  some 
volunteers  ventured  so  near  the  fort  as  to  fire  the 
sloop  on  the  stocks.  Five  of  these  men  were 
killed — the  sole  loss  of  the  whole  expedition.  The 
remainder  of  the  French  kept  at  a  safe  distance 
on  the  ice  while  the  sloop  went  up  in  flames  and 
ended  the  exploits  of  the  winter  siege,  for  the  fol- 
lowing morning  found  French,  Canadians  and  In- 
dians on  their  way  down  the  lake,  laboring 
through  the  three  feet  of  snow  which  now  cov- 
ered the  ice,  many  of  them  snow  blind  and  led 
on  to  Ticonderoga  by  the  hand.  The  Governor 
of  Canada,  a  vain-glorious  mortal,  made  the  most 
of  this  attempt  and  boasted  that  by  its  means 
the  plans  of  the  English  had  been  '"  calcined." 

MONTCALM   OX   LAKE    GEORGE. 

The  plans  of  the  English  had  in  fact  taken 
quite  another  direction.  A  grand  attack  upon  the 
fortress  of  Louisburg  was  proposed  by  the  feeble 
English  commander.  Lord  Loudoun,  and  most  of 
the  forces  were  the  next  summer  drawn  away 
from  Fort  William  Henry  and  Fort  Edward  for 
this  purpose.  The  French  general,  Montcalm, 
had  bided  his  time  and  he  now  saw  his  chance 
to  dislodge  the  English  from  Lake  George.  Agents 
of  the  French  had  been  at  work  among  the  north- 


44 

western  Indians  all  winter,  persuading-  them  to 
join  a  great  war  party  ag'ainst  the  English,  and 
the  Juh'  of  1757  found  a  thousand  of  these  savages 
gathered  in  Canada,  in  addition  to  a  number  of 
mission  Indians  from  Maine  and  from  Montreal,  to 
whom  Montcalm  sung  the  war  song,  in  the  person 
of  one  of  his  aides,  who  chanted  again  and  again 
the  words,  "  Let  us  trample  the  English  under 
our  feet."  During  July  numbers  of  sloops,  ba- 
teaux and  canoes  were  busily  plying  up  and 
down  Lake  Champlain,  moving  Montcalm's  forces 
to  Ticonderoga.  At  the  last  of  the  month  eight 
thousand  men,  two  thousand  of  whom  were  In- 
dians, were  assembled  here.  The  French  and 
Canadians  laboriously  dragged  boats,  cannon  and 
stores  across  the  portage,  while  their  Indian  allies 
gobbled  a  week's  rations  in  three  days  and  fell 
upon  some  cattle  designed  for  the  .French  armj' . 
It  was  "  a  St.  Bartholomew  of  the  oxen,"  as  one 
French  officer  said.  The  western  Indians  busied 
themselves  in  "  making  medicine  "  to  insure  suc- 
cess, and  all  joined  in  frequent  war  dances,  where 
the  warriors,  painted  with  vermilion,  white, 
green,  yellow  and  a  black  made  of  the  scrapings 
of  kettles  and  api3lied  with  the  aid  of  bear's 
grease,  their  scalp  locks  adorned  with  feathers, 
their  ears  split  and  weighted  until  they  reached 
their  shoulders,  and  knives  suspended  around 
their  necks,  danced  through  the  assembly,  hold- 
ing up  some  animal's  head,  to  represent  the  head 
of  the  enemy,  and  boasting  of  their  own  prowess. 
A  party  of  one  hundred  and  thirty  of  the  Indians 


45 

under  Marin,  a  French  leader,  penetrated  the 
woods  as  far  as  Fort  Edward  and  returned  with 
thirty  scalps,  which,  however,  it  was  afterwards 
found,  represented  only  eleven  men,  the  Indians 
having-  learned  the  art  of  subdividing-  these' 
trophies,  since  they  brought  a  good  i)rice  in 
Canada.  At  another  time  three  hundred  Eng-lish 
soldiers,  most  of  whom  were  from  New  Jersey 
and  little  used  to  Indian  warfare,  descended  Lake 
George  and  were  ambushed  by  the  Indians  at 
Sabbathday  Point,  where  the  savag-es  fired  on 
them  at  short  range  and  then  darted  out  and  pur- 
sued them  in  their  swift  canoes.  The  frig-htened 
Jerseymen  were  overtaken.  Many  of  them  leaped 
into  the  water  where  they  were  speared  like  fish, 
and  others  were  overtaken  in  the  woods  bj'  their 
fleet-footed  pursuers.  Two  hundred  out  of  the 
three  hundred  were  killed  or  captured,  and  the 
bodies  of  the  dead  floated  for  some  time  on  the 
waters  of  the  lake  or  lay  along  the  shores.  The 
Indians  were  afterwards  discovered  by  a  horri- 
fied priest  making  a  meal  of  one  of  these  poor 
fellows.  The  other  prisoners  met  a  happier  fate, 
for  w^hen  they  were  taken  by  the  French  to  be 
sent  to  Canada  their  Indian  masters  stipulated 
that  they  should  be  shod  And  fed  on  white  bread, 
having  an  eye,  no  doubt,  to  the  ransom  which 
they  could  extract  for  them  from  the  Canadian 
government. 

It  is  impossible  for  the  French  to  put  down  the 
barbarous  practices  of  the  Indians  without  wound- 
ing the  sensibilities  of  these  touchy  sous  of  the 


46 

forest  and  losing"  their  aid.  Their  red  allies  were 
indeed  a  sore  trouble  to  the  French,  and  Mont- 
calm found,  as  Dieskau  had  before  him,  that  it 
required  the  patience  of  an  ang"el  to  bear  with 
them.  They  insisted  on  being  consulted  by  the 
French  general  as  to  all  his  movements^  and  often 
he  had  to  be  guided  by  their  whims,  for  the 
French  deemed  Indians  as  important  in  forest 
warfare  as  cavalry  on  the  plains.  These  people 
were  now  very  much  puffed  up  with  their  success 
at  Sabbathday  Point  and  their  arrogance  became 
unbearable.  They  said  the  lake  was  "  red  with 
the  blood  of  Corlear,"  for  so  they  called  the  Eng-- 
lish,  and  they  were  determined  immediately  to 
return  home  with  their  strings  of  scalps,  saying 
that  it  would  be  tempting  the  master  of  life  to 
venture  on  another  fight.  Montcalm  was  obliged 
to  hold  a  council  with  them  and  bind  them  to  him 
with  an  enormous  wampum  belt  of  six  thousand 
beads.  On  the  eve  of  departure  he  would  let 
them  have  no  brandy,  and  they  grew  uneasy  and 
paddled  up  Lake  George  to  the  neighborhood  of 
Sabbathday  Point,  where  they  amused  themselves 
with    killing    rattlesnakes. 

There  were  not  boats  enough  to  carry  all  of 
the  army  of  eight  thousand  as  well  as  the  cannon, 
stores  and  provisions,  and  on  the  thirtieth  of  July 
twenty-five  hundred  men,  guided  by  the  Canadian 
Mohawks  and  under  the  command  of  the  Chevalier 
de  Levis,  started  up  the  west  shore  of  the  lake  on 
foot.  They  followed  an  old  Indian  trail  up  over 
Rogers'  Kock,  or  Bald  Mountain,  as  it  was  then 


47 

called,  and  throug-h  the  almost  impenetrable 
forests  and  well-nigh  impassable  mountains  of  the 
Narrows  to  the  mouth  of  Ganouske,  or  Northwest, 
Bay,  where  they  halted  to  wait  for  the  main  army. 
The  weather  was  so  hot  and  the  march  so  rough 
that  two  officers  broke  down  by  the  way. 

At  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  the  first  day 
of  August,  the  main  army  embarked  and  began  to 
ascend  the  lake.  As  the  fleet  rounded  Anthony's 
Nose  it  was  struck  by  one  of  those  summer  squalls 
common  to  this  mountain  lake,  and  the  boats  were 
forced  to  lie  by  under  the  shelter  of  the  point  until 
it  was  over.  Deluged  with  rain,  the  French  then 
pushed  on,  and  as  they  neared  Sabbathday  Point 
the  deserted  boats  and  the  mutilated  bodies  of  the 
English  who  had  been  routed  here  by  the  Indians, 
could  be  seen  cast  up  upon  the  shores.  At  Isle  a 
la  Barque,  or  Harbor  Island,  the  Indians  were 
resting  from  their  snake  hunt  and  awaiting  them. 
These  savages,  one  thousand  in  number,  in  one 
hundred  and  fifty  birch  canoes,  took  the  lead; 
then  came  hundreds  of  bateaux,  or  large,  flat- 
bottomed  boats  loaded  with  soldiery,  all  in  line, 
as  though  marching  on  land;  next  the  siege 
cannon  and  mortars,  each  on  a  platform  resting 
upon  two  bateaux  and  rowed  by  militia,  followed 
by  provision  boats,  the  field  hospital  and  last  of 
all  a  guard  of  French  soldiers.  Never  was  there 
a  finer  pageant  than  this  army,  gay  with  banners, 
brilliant  costumes  and  savage  bravery,  as  it  floated 
slowly  through  the  Narrows  on  the  night  of  the 
first  and  second   of  August,    1757.     This   fleet   of 


48 

boats  rounded  Tongue  Mountain  in  the  early 
morning-  and  made  for  the  Bolton  shore,  guided 
by  a  triangle  of  fire  built  on  the  mountain  side 
by  the  Chevalier  de  Levis  as  a  signal.  They  came 
to  land  on  or  near  the  site  of  the  present  villag-e 
of  Bolton,  the  men  cooked  their  food  and  rested 
and  a  council  was  held.  At  ten  o'clock  Levis  set 
forth  ag-ain  on  the  march  along-  the  shore,  and 
Montcalm's  army  broke  camp  at  noon  and  em- 
barking advanced  to  Great  Sandy  Bay,  as  Basin 
Bay  w^as  then  called,  where  it  halted  once  more, 
until  six  o'clock,  when  all  advanced  to  the  small 
bay  opposite  Diamond  Island,  where  a  point  liid 
them  from  Fort  William  Henry. 

THE    SIEGE    OF    EORT   WILLIAM   HENRY. 

It  was  impossible  that  an  army  should  have 
gathered  at  Ticonderoga  and  the  garrison  at  Fort 
William  Henry  remain  ignorant  of  the  fact.  Gen- 
eral Webb,  who  was  in  command  of  all  the  forces 
on  the  New  York  frontier,  hearing  of  Fort  Wil- 
liam Henry's  danger,  came  up  from  Fort  Ed- 
ward, a  few  days  before  the  arrival  of  the  French, 
and  the  enemy  heard  at  Ticonderoga  the  dis- 
charges of  cannon  with  which  the  garrison 
greeted  him  on  his  arrival.  After  inspecting  the 
works  he  returned  to  Fort  Edward  where  he 
wrote  to  ask  for  the  militia  and  sent  a  thousand 
men  from  his  garrison  to  aid  in  the  defense  of 
Lake  George.  He  was  left  with  sixteen  hundred 
men  at  Fort  Edward  and  eight  hundred  more  at 
the  various  carrying  places  on  the  Hudson  and  at 


49 

Albany.  He  was  not  a  man  of  great  activity  or 
courag-e  and  easily  persuaded  himself  that  it  was 
his  duty  to  remain  at  Fort  Edward  and  protect 
the  lower  country. 

Col.  Monro,  the  brave  Scotchman  who  com- 
manded at  Lake  George,  had  now  twenty-two 
hundred  men  with  which  to  defend  this  post. 
Most  of  these  men  were  encamped  back  of  the 
present  Fort  William  Henry  Hotel,  on  the  rise  of 
ground  where  the  Catholic  Church  now  stands. 
There  was  a  well  entrenched  camp  on  the  hill 
where  Fort  George  was  afterwards  built  to  which 
the  men  would  retire  for  greater  security  in  case 
of  a  siege  and  from  this  point  relieve  each  other 
in  guarding  the  fort.  The  fort  itself  stood  on  the 
east  side  of  and  in  the  grounds  of  the  present 
hotel  of  the  same  name  and  directly  overlooks 
the  marsh  and  the  beach  where  the  modern  rail- 
road station  now  stands.  Its  earthern  embank- 
ments, which  may  be  tracked  to  this  day,  formed 
an  irregular  square  with  bastions  and  were  sur- 
mounted with  parallel  walls  built  of  pine  logs 
and  filled  in  with  earth.  Connected  with  the  fort 
was  a  farm  which  occupied  the  present  grounds 
of  the  Fort  William  Henry  Hotel  and  extended 
for  some  distance  across  and  beyond  the  Plank 
Eoad  of  our  day.  For  half  a  mile  around,  to  the 
very  foot  of  the  mountains,  indeed,  the  noble 
first  growth  pines  had  been  cut  down,  that  they 
might  not  shelter  a  lurking  foe,  and  lay  pell-mell, 
as  they  had  fallen,  a  well-nigh  impenetral)le  mass. 
The  Fort  Edward  road  ended  at  the  lake  shore, 


50 

about  at  the  middle  of  the  beach,  and  still  exists 
in  a  neig-hborhood  road  which  runs  between  the 
Fort  George  hill  and  the  site  of  the  Battle  of  Lake 
George.  The  fort  was  defended  on  the  north  by 
the  lake,  on  the  east  by  the  marsh  ^yhich  the 
present  railroad  partly  occupies,  and  on  the  south 
and  west  by  "  chevaux-de-frise."  On  its  ram- 
parts were  seventeen  cannon,  some  swivels  and 
mortars;  within  its  wall  was  the  smallpox,  a 
silent  enemy  which  prej^ed  upon  armies  in  those 
days. 

At  ten  o'clock  on  the  night  of  the  second  of 
August  two  boats  put  off  from  the  fort  on  a  scout- 
ing expedition.  The  men  had  rowed  down  the 
lake  to  the  neighborhood  of  Diamond  Island  when 
their  attention  was  attracted  by  a  strange  object 
against  the  west  shore.  It  was  in  fact  an  awning 
over  a  boat  in  which  were  the  French  priests, 
and  about  and  behind  it  were  the  whole  French 
army.  To  approach  too  near  was  certain  death, 
but  the  scouts  pushed  onward,  curious  to  know 
w^hat  it  might  be.  They  were  coming  every  mo- 
ment nearer  and  a  thousand  Indians  were  lying 
in  wait  for  'them,  when  there  arose  a  plaintive 
bleating  from  a  sheep  confined  on  a  French  pro- 
vision boat.  The  scouting  party  suddenly  turned 
at  the  warning  sound  and  made  for  the  east 
shore.  Instantlj^  the  death  yell  rang  through  the 
air,  from  something  like  a  thousand  savage 
throats,  and  innumerable  canoes  sped  out  from 
shore.  For  many  minutes  there  was  a  breathless 
chase.     The  Indians  sped  on  until  they  saw  that 


51 

the  English  were  likely  to  make  the  other  shore 
and  escape  when  at  last  they  fired  upon  them. 
The  pursued  men  returned  the  fire  as  they  pulled 
on  for  their  lives.  The  Indians  killed  several  of 
them  in  the  end  and  captured  three.  The  re- 
mainder escaped  to  the  woods  of  the  east  shore. 
The  prisoners  gave  Montcalm  valuable  informa- 
tion of  the  position  and  plans  of  the  garrison;  the 
fugitives  made  their  way  through  the  woods  to 
the  fort  and  warned  the  English  of  the  approach 
of  the  enemy. 

That  night  there  was  mourning  among  the  In- 
dians. A  Nippising  chief  had  been  killed  in  the 
fray.  His  tribesmen  dressed  him  in  the  most 
magnificent  of  savage  costumes,  loaded  him  with 
necklaces  of  porcelain  beads,  adorned  him  with 
nose  and  ear  pendants,  put  silver  bracelets  on  his 
arms,  hung  a  gorget  by  a  scarlet  ribbon  at  his 
throat,  concealed  the  pallid  hue  of  death  on  his 
face  with  the  most  brilliant  paints,  placed  a  pipe 
in  his  mouth,  a  tomahawk  at  his  belt,  a  lance  in 
his  hand,  rested  his  gun  in  the  hollow  of  his 
stiffened  arm  and  deposited  a  kettle  filled  with 
food  at  his  side.  The  dead  chief,  thus  attired, 
was  seated  upon  a  little  grassy  eminence  while 
his  friends  surrounded  him  listening  to  the 
funeral  oration,  dancing  a  solemn  dance,  to  the 
tinkling  of  small  bells,  and  finally  burying  him 
as  he  sat,  well  equipped,  as  they  thought,  for  the 
journey  to  another  world. 

At  two  o'clock  the  firing  of  a  cannon  at  Fort 
William  Henry  broke  on  the  stillness  o^  *he  night 


52 

air  and  announced  that  the  g-arrison  was  warned 
of  the  presence  of  the  enemy.  Indian  scouts 
brought  word  that  the  English  were  in-  motion, 
Montcalm,  on  the  chance  that  they  might  be  com- 
ing to  attack  him,  formed  his  army  for  battle.  At 
daybreak  the  French  marched  in  three  columns 
up  the  west  shore,  while  the  Indians  approached 
the  fort  by  water,  their  canoes  making  a  line  from 
shore  to  shore.  The  artillery  as  it  rounded  an  in- 
tervening point  fired  a  salute  to  the  doomed  fort. 
The  English  tents  might  still  be  seen  standing 
on  the  high  ground  behind  the  fort,  but  the  garri- 
son was  busy  striking  them  and  burning  their 
huts,  that  these  might  afford  the  enemy  no  shelter, 
gathering  in  their  horses  and  cattle  from  the 
woods  and  skirmishing  with  the  Indians,  who 
began  to  hover  around  them.  Montcalm  thought 
of  making  an  assault  on  the  entrenched  camp  at 
Fort  George  hill,  and  he  marched  his  army 
around  to  the  eastward  of  this  spot.  The  Eng- 
lish, with  the  exception  of  those  on  duty  in  the 
fort,  were  now  collected  at  this  point,  and  the 
men  could  be  heard  busily  strengthening  the 
works,  which  were  defended  by  six  cannon  in  ad- 
dition to  those  in  the  fort.  Montcalm  stood  not 
far  from  the  spot  where  Dieskau  had  been  de- 
feated, and  his  final  decision  was  not  to  risk  the 
men  so  sorely  needed  for  the  defense  of  Canada 
in  an  assault.  He  chose  instead  the  site  of  the 
present  village  of  Caldwell  for  a  regular  sieg'e. 
He  gradually  withdrew  his  main  army  to  the 
farther  side  of  the  little  ravine  north  of  Caldwel] 
5 


53 

now  known  as  Brink's  Hollow  and  encamped  on 
land  afterwards  included  in  the  grounds  of  the 
mansion  house  of  James  Caldwell,  leaving-  a  body 
of  Indians  and  Canadians  encamped  on  the  Fort 
Edward  road  to  cut  off  all  communication  with 
that  post. 

On  the  first  day  of  the  siege  Montcalm  sum- 
moned the  garrison  to  surrender,  with  the  usual 
threat  of  the  French  that  the  Indians  might  be- 
come unmanageable  in  case  they  were  irritated 
by  a  stubborn  resistance.  While  the  flags  of  truce 
were  flying  these  braves  scattered  over  the  fort 
fields,  and  when  Monro  made  answer  that  he 
should  defend  the  post  to  the  last  and  discharged 
all  his  cannon  to  make  his  reply  the  more  em- 
phatic, a  chief  shouted  back  to  the  fort,  in  broken 
French:  "  You  won't  surrender,  eh!  Fire  awajs 
then,  and  fight  your  best,  for  if  I  catch  you  I 
shall  give  you  no  quarter  I  " 

The  next  day,  which  was  the  fourth  of  August, 
the  last  of  the  French  troops  were  withdrawn  to 
the  camp  north  of  the  little  hollow,  and  Levis' 
men,  besides  scouting  on  the  Fort  Edward  road, 
were  ordered  to  appear  here  and  there  about 
the  fort  in  a  very  active  manner,  that  the  English 
might  think  themselves  surrounded.  In  reality  it 
was  impossible  to  completely  surround  Fort  Wil- 
liam Henry  without  a  much  larger  army,  though 
the  garrison  was  indeed  invested  with  inaccessible 
woods  and  abandoned  to  its  fate  by  those  who 
might  have  succored  it.  The  French,  however, 
kn^w  nothing  of  this.     They  believed  that  Webb 


54 

had  six  thousand  men  at  Fort  Edward.  When 
night  came  on  the  cannon  were  landed  at  the 
spot  still  known  as  Artillery  Cove,  and  trenches 
were  opened  for  the  siege.  Eight  hundred  men 
worked  hard  all  night,  sawing  and  chopping  up 
the  great  trees  left  lying  on  the  ground  and  dig- 
ging out  the  stumps  and  roots  before  they  could 
work  in  the  soil  itself.  Cannon  ball  and  shells 
from  the  fort  guns  flew  above  and  around  them 
and  occasionally  a  man  was  wounded.  Pieces  of 
these  shells  and  the  remains  of  the  siege  works 
are  still  found  in  the  gardens  of  Caldwell.  So 
well  did  the  men  work  that  morning  found  them 
delving  under  cover  from  the  guns  of  the  fort, 
except  at  the  battery  on  the  extreme  right,  where 
the  ground  was  very  difficult.  Some  soldiers  were 
killed  in  the  camp  on  the  mansion  house  grounds 
and  Montcalm  moved  two  regiments  from  the 
lake  shore  on  this  account. 

At  four  o'clock  on  this  third  day  of  the  siege 
messengers  came  to  ^lontcalm  with  word  that  two 
thousand  men  were  marching  up  the  Fort  Edward 
road  to  the  relief  of  Fort  William  Henry.  The 
French  general  immediately  sent  a  portion  of  his 
army  to  the  aid  of  Levis,  but  the  two  thousand 
men  proved  to  be  one  poor  messenger,  who  was 
killed  by  the  Indians.  His  vest,  containing  a 
letter  concealed  in  a  hollow  musket  ball,  was* 
brought  to  Montcalm.  The  letter  was  from  the 
English  general,  Webb,  to  Colonel  Monro,  and 
Montcalm  read  in  it,  what  must  have  been  news 
to  him,  that  the  French  army  was  thirteen  thou- 


55 

sand  strong-,  besides  the  fact  that  Webb  could  do 
nothing-  for  Monro  until  the  militia  arrived.  It 
advised  him  to  make  the  best  terms  he  could. 
This  letter,  while  it  encourag-ed  the  French,  caused 
Montcalm  to  hurry  on  the  work  in  the  trenches 
that  he  mig-ht  capture  the  fort  before  the  colonial 
militia  should  march  to  its  relief. 

Many  of  the  Indians  were  idling  about  their 
canoes  or  amusing-  themselves  with  firing  into  the 
fields  of  the  fort  and  killing  the  horses  and  cattle 
belonging  to  the  garrison,  a  kind  of  warfare  great- 
ly to  their  taste,  while  they  did  not  hesitate  to 
express  their  discontent  that  the  "  big  guns  "  of 
the  French  were  still  silent.  To  remedy  these 
matters,  Montcalm  called  them  to  a  council  and 
reproved  them  for  not  aiding  in  the  guarding  of 
the  Fort  Edward  road  as  he  wished  them  to  do. 
They  replied  that  they  had  also  something  on 
their  hearts,  which  was  that  their  French  father 
had  had  the  assurance  to  go  on  with  the  siege 
without  consulting  them.  Montcalm  explained 
that  he  had  been  too  hurried  to  do  so,  and  cleared 
their  sight,  cleansed  their  hearts  and  restored 
their  senses  in  the  approved  Indian  manner  with 
two  belts  and  ten  strings  of  wampum.  This  cere- 
mony performed,  the  Indians  promised  to  do  as 
Montcalm  wished,  and  he  told  them  what  was 
written  in  General  Webb's  letter  and  informed 
them  that  the  ''  big  guns  "  would  begin  their 
work  the  next  day. 

On  the  morning  of  the  sixth  of  August  the  first 
French  battery  of  eight  cannon  and  one  mortar 


56 

was  unmasked.  Amid  the  yells  and  whoops  of  the 
Indians  several  rounds  were  fired  and  then  the 
guns  placed  every  two  minutes  upon  the  lake  and 
g'arden  sides  of  the  fort,  the  English  answering 
w^ith  a  brisk  fire  and  the  savages  making  the 
mountains  resound  with  their  cries  of  "joy  when- 
ever it  chanced  that  the  French  guns  did  some 
evident  execution. 

The  next  day  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  the 
second  battery  was  opened  on  the  right.  The 
two  batteries  joined  in  firing*  a  salute  on  the 
arrival  of  Montcalm  in  the  trenches.  Both  bat- 
teries then  played  an  hour  upon  the  fort  and 
after  a  double  salute  from  all  the  guns,  accom- 
panied by  a  deal  of  Indian  whooping  Montcalm 
dispatched  one  of  his  aides  to  the  fort  with  the 
letter  of  General  Webb  which  he  had  captured 
two  days  before.  He  was  urged  to-  this  by  the 
Indians,  who  thought  that  its  discouraging  tone 
would  induce  the  garrison  to  surrender.  Monro, 
however,  merely  thanked  ]\[ontcalm  for  his  polite- 
ness and  said  that  he  meant  to  make  a  gallant  de- 
fense. The  cannon  opened  fire  once  more  on  both 
sides  and  the  Indians  made  the  mountains  ring 
whenever  a  shell  fell  within  the  fort.  These 
fellows  were  far  from  sticking  to  their  hum- 
drum task  of  guarding  the  Fort  Edward  road. 
They  were  everywhere,  and  they  admired  so  much 
the  French  manner  of  digging  covered  passage- 
ways that  they  imitated  them,  digging  small 
pits  outside  the  lines,  from  which  they  picked 
off  the  gunners  at  the  fort. 


57 

At  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  this  same 
day,  which  was  the  seventh  of  Aug-ust  and  the 
fourth  of  the  siege,  five  hundred  of  the  English 
made  a  sortie  and  tried  to  establish  a  post  on  the 
Fort  Edward  road,  but  they  were  driven  back 
with  a  loss  of  fifty  men. 

All  the  time  the  work  went  on  in  the  trenches, 
which  were  rapidly  approaching-  the  fort.  Two 
cowards  deserted  from  the  garrison,  but  when  they 
approached  the  French  lines  through  the  fort 
garden,  now  the  grounds  of  the  Fort  William 
Henry  Hotel,  some  Indians  who  lay  on  their 
stomachs  in  advance  of  the  French  approaches 
fired  upon  them  and  instantly  all  the  mountains 
about  the  lake  echoed  with  the  yells  of  the 
savages.  The  French  thought  that  the  English 
had  intended  to  make  a  sortie  and  were  dis- 
couraged by  these  fearful  whoops,  but  it  is  more 
'ikely  that  they  disheartened  deserters. 

The  French  siege  works  had  now  reached  the 
edge  of  a  small  swamp  which  divided  them  from 
the  gardens  of  the  fort,  filled  in  that  day  with 
cat-tails  and  swamp  grasses,  but  now  known  as 
Welch's  Hollow,  much  of  which  has  been  filled 
up  in  imjjroving  the  hotel  grounds  and  building 
the  Plank  Eoad.  Although  it  was  morning  and 
the  men  unprotected  from  the  fire  of  the  fort 
such  was  the  hast«  of  Montcalm  that  he  ordered 
a  bridge  to  be  built  across  the  hollow  capable 
of  bearing  cannon.  This  was  done  by  laying 
hurdles  of  hollow  squares  made  of  logs  and  fas- 
cines,  or   bundles   of   sticks,    on    the    marsh,   and 


58 

building  a  sort  of  corduroj-  road  on  them.  By 
afternoon  the  French  had  made  a  lodgment  in  the 
very  gardens  of  the  fort  and  the  Indians  crept 
ahead  of  them  among  the  beans  and  corn  and 
picked  off  men  on  the  ramparts.  One  brave  even 
killed  and  scalped  a  woman  who  had  sallied  forth 
in  search  of  vegetables.  It  was  on  this  same  day, 
the  eighth,  that  a  panic-stricken  Indian  saw  the 
glitter  of  arms  upon  one  of  the  mountains  and 
hurried  to  camp  with  the  news.  Instantly  the 
whole  French  camp  was  in  motion,  a  portion  to 
repel  the  relief  coming  by  way  of  the  mountains 
and  the  remainder  to  protect  the  French  in- 
trenchments.  The  English,  in  their  fortified 
camp  on  Fort  George  hill,  were  seen  to  be  in 
motion,  and  the  cannon  were  ordered  to  fire  high 
that  the  balls  might  reach  this  spot  and  prevent 
them  marching  out  to  the  aid  of  the  relieving 
party.  In  fact  there  was  no  relief  coming  and 
the  English  were  only  making  ready  to  receive 
the  French,  for  when  they  saw  them  on  the  march 
they  supposed  that  it  was  to  attack  them. 

THE  FAIiL  OF   FORT  WILLIAM    HENRY. 

The  next  night  the  English  fired  long  and 
briskly  on  the  French  as  they  labored  hard  in  the 
fort  garden  to  throw  up  works.  The  chance  of 
dislodging  them  was  the  last  hope  of  the  gar- 
rison, and  this  failed,  for  by  the  morning  of  the 
ninth  of  August  and  the  sixth  day  of  the  siege 
thirty-two  French  cannon  were  ready  to  open 
at  short  range  on  the  walls  of  the   fort,   which 


59 

were  already  pretty  well  battered  down.  Its  large 
guns,  which  were  of  poor  metal,  were  all  burst 
or  disabled,  and  but  seven  small  cannon  remained 
with  which  to  answer  the  combined  batteries 
of  the  besieging  arm}'.  The  French  might  now 
easily  surround  the  doomed  post,  separate  it  from 
the  entrenched  camp  on  Fort  George  hill  and 
when  a  breach  had  been  made  in  its  wall  take 
it  by  assault,  when  all  the  horrors  of  an  Indian 
massacre  would  be  certain  to  follow.  On  the 
morning  of  August  ninth  the  English  officers 
held  a  council,  at  which  it  was  agreed  that  the 
onh'  course  left  was  to  surrender  while  good 
terms  might  yet  be  demanded.  At  seven  o'clock  a 
white  flag  was  hoisted,  a  drum  beat  and  an  English 
officer  with  a  wounded  foot  issued  from  the  gate 
of  the  fort  and  rode  to  the  French  lines  on  horse- 
back. The  garrison  demanded  to  be  allowed  to 
march  out  with  the  honors  of  war  and  retire 
to  Fort  Edward.  It  was  not  difficult  to  make 
terms  with  Montcalm,  for  Canada  had  done  so 
much  fighting  and  so  little  farming  during  the 
war  that  her  people  were  well-nigh  starved  and 
wanted  no  more  mouths  to  feed.  It  was  agreed 
that  the  garrison  should  march  out  of  the  fort 
with  arms  and  baggage,  should  be  escorted  to 
Fort  Edward  by  a  body  of  French  troops,  should 
not  serve  in  the  war  again  for  eighteen  months 
and  that  all  French  prisoners  of  war  should  be 
returned  to  Canada  in  their  stead.  Before  con- 
cluding the  terms  Montcalm  took  care  to  call  a 
council  of  the   Indians,  consult   them   and   exact 


60 

a  promise  from  them  that  they  would  prevent 
their  young"  men  from  doing  the  English  any 
harm. 

THE  MASSACRE   OF   I.AKE   GEORGE. 

The  garrison  of  Fort  William  Henry  now  hur- 
riedly packed  their  baggage,  Montcalm  sent  men 
to  guard  the  ammunition  and  provisions,  which 
Were  very  precious  to  the  French  at  this  time, 
and  caused  all  the  barrels  of  rum  and  wine  to  be 
staved  in;  it  being  thought  best  to  leave  the  re- 
maining plunder  to  the  Indians.  Some  sick  men 
still  lay  in  the  infected  casemates  of  the  fort, 
neglected  by  friends  and  shunned  by  foes  because 
they  were  ill  of  the  smallpox.  At  twelve  o'clock 
the  garrison  of  Fort  William  Henry  marched  out. 
While  the  ceremonies  of  capitulation  were  going 
on  without  the  fort  Indians  climbed  in  through 
the  casemates  and  their  first  act  was  to  murder 
the  sic%  whom  they  found  there.  Father  Kou- 
beaud,  a  French  missionary  among  the  Indians, 
was  horrified  to  see  one  brave  come  forth  from  the 
fort  bearing  the  bleeding  head  of  one  of  his  vic- 
tims and  parading  it  as  the  most  valuable  of 
prizes.  The  garrison,  fearing  the  Indians,  begged 
a  French  guard,  which  was  granted,  and  under 
its  protection  marched  "  in  beautiful  order  "  over 
to  the  entrenched  camp  on  Fort  George  hill.  The 
Indians  hung  around,  sullen  and  discontented. 
To  return  without  scalps,  captives  and  plunder 
was  to  them  a  dismal  prospect.  Young  braves 
felt   that   they   were   robbed   of   the   honors   and 


61 

rewards  due  them,  for  they  expected  no  other 
pay  for  their  services.  They  dug-  up  the  dead 
and  scalped  them,  and  when  later  at  their  homes 
in  the  northwest  they  fell  a  prey  to  the  small- 
pox concluded  that  the  reveng-eful  English  had 
cast  some  spell  upon  them.  When  they  had 
robbed  the  fort  of  its  poor  pickings  of  plunder 
and  scalps  they  pushed  insolently  into  the  en- 
trenched camp,  where  the  French  stood  guard 
over  the  fallen  garrison,  wandered  about  feeling 
the  long  hair  of  the  cowering  women,  and  terrify- 
ing the  children  among  the  prisoners.  Presently 
they  began  to  plunder  the  camp  chests  of  the 
English  officers,  who  vigorously  resisted  them. 
Things  had  an  ugly  look.  The  French  guard  was 
alarmed,  A  messenger  was  sent  to  the  French 
camp  for  ^Montcalm,  He  prayed,  threatened  and 
caressed;  he  called  on  the  Canadian  officers  and 
interpreters  to  aid  him  in  preventing  a  massacre, 

"  Detestable  position!  "  his  aide  cried,  "  of 
which  no  one  who  has  not  seen  it  can  have  any 
idea  and  which  makes  victory  itself  a  sorrow  to 
the  victors," 

At  last,  by  nine  o'clock  at  night  the  French 
general  had  restored  order,  had  induced  the  In- 
dians to  promise  to  send  some  of  their  chiefs 
to  Fort  Edward  with  the  English  as  a  guard  and 
had  ordered  the  Canadian  officers  among  the  In- 
dians to  prevent  further  mischief. 

The  English  spent  an  uneasy  night.  Neither 
they  nor  the  Indians  slept.  The  latter  hovered 
around  their  prey,  begging  rum  of  the  English, 


62 

who,  willing  to  appease  them,  freely  gave  it  from 
their  canteens.  Seventeen  wounded  men  lay  in 
huts  in  the  camp.  The  day  before  the  English 
surgeon  had  turned  them  over  to  the  French  sur- 
geon, who  had  placed  a  guard  over  them.  For 
some  reason  this  guard  was  removed,  or  deserted 
its  post,  and  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  the 
Indians  dragged  these  poor  wretches  from  their 
pallets  and  murdered  them.  This  added  to  the 
terror  of  the  garrison.  Men,  women  and  children 
gathered  together  in  haste  to  be  gone.  The  In- 
dians crowded  around  them  and  began  to  snatch 
their  baggage  from  them.  Monro  complained  to 
the  Canadian  officers.  They  advised  him  to  give 
up  the  baggage  to  the  savages.  But  nothing  ap- 
peased the  Indians.  Their  greedy  eyes  were  upon 
everything  portable.  They  demanded  food,  cloth- 
ing— all  they  sa^v — "  in  a  tone  which  announced 
that  the  thrust  of  a  spear  would  be  the  price  of 
a  refusal."  The  frightened  men  complied  with 
all  their  requests,  stripping  themselves  of  their 
very  clothing  if  they  might  but  purchase  their 
lives. 

The  French  guard  of  four  hundred  men  now 
arrived  on  the  scene  and  hastily  arranged  them- 
selves in  order,  while  the  garrison  fell  into  rank 
and  marched  out  of  the  entrenchments.  As  they 
filed  out  the  Indians  saw  with  greedy  eyes  their 
prey  escaping.  The  Abenakis  from  ]SIaine,  Indians 
who  had  been  converts  for  many  years,  but  who 
were  none  the  less  inhuman  at  heart,  had  a  grudge 
against    the   English    colonists    which    called    for 


63 

reveng-e.  It  was  their  sharp  hatchets  which  first 
fell  upon  those  who  from  illness  or  any  other 
cause  straggled  from  the  ranks,  and  other  Indians 
soon  followed  their  example.  A  number  of  life- 
less bodies  were  speedily  strewn  about  the  ground, 
and  heavy  blows  fell  right  and  left  on  all  within 
reach,  and  especially  on  the  New  Hampshire  regi- 
ment which  brought  up  the  rear.  A  halt  was 
ordered,  but  when  those  in  front  learned  the  cause 
they  pushed  on  again  in  confusion.  The  butchery 
was  soon  over.  Either  the  non-resistance  of  the 
helpless  garrison,  which  had  arms  but  no  ammuni- 
tion, or  the  greed  of  the  Indians,  who  could  get 
a  better  price  for  a  prisoner  than  a  scalp,  changed 
the  massacre  into  a  scramble  for  captives.  '*  The 
son  was  snatched  from  a  father's  arms,  the 
daughter  torn  fromi  the  bosom  of  her  mother,  the 
husband  separated  /"rom  his  wife,  the  officers 
stripped  to  their  shirts  "  ;  and  "  a  crowd  of  un- 
happy beings  were  running  about  at  random, 
some  toward  the  woods,  others  toward  the  tents 
of  the  French,"  and  many  toward  the  fort.  The 
Canadian  officers  were  either  heartless  or  help- 
less in  this  emergency  and  told  those  who  ran  to 
them  for  protection  to  fly  to  the  woods.  The 
French  guard  seemed  lost  among  so  many  blood- 
thirsty savages  mingled  as  they  were  with  their 
helpless  victims.  Levis  ran  in  all  directions  try- 
ing to  quell  the  tumult.  A  French  sergeant  was 
killed  by  the  blow  of  a  spear  in  trying  to  defend 
the  English,  and  another  officer  was  gravely 
wounded.      The    main   French    army    was   at    too 


64 

great  a  distance  to  be  of  any  avail,  and  Montcalm 
only  arrived  on  the  scene  after  the  butchery  was 
over  and  while  the  Indians  were  still  rushing- 
madly  here  and  there  in  pursuit  of  captives.  To 
use  the  words  of  an  eye  witness,  he  "  multiplied 
himself,  he  was  everj'where;  praj'ers,  hienaces, 
promises,  were  used;  he  tried  everything"  and  at 
last  resorted  to  force."  He  wrested  the  nephew 
of  an  English  .colonel  from  the  hands  of  a  war- 
rior, and  immediately  a  number  of  other  Indians, 
preferring  a  scalp  to  nothing,  murdered  their 
prisoners.  The  tumult  increased  until  some  one 
thought  of  calling  to  the  garrison,  which  still 
made  a  compact  bodj%  to  increase  their  speed. 
They  needed  no  second  hint.  Never  was  a  double- 
quick  march  made  in  better  time.  The  Indians 
were  by  this  time  laden  w'ith  spoils  and  could 
not  easily  pursue.  Some  retired  and '  the  others 
w^ere  dispersed  by  the  Frenchmen.  About  fifty 
were  killed  in  this  massacre  and  six  or  seven 
hundred  taken  captive.  The  van  reached  Fort 
Edward  in  some  order,  but  manj^  others,  fleeing 
through  the  woods,  half  naked  and  nearly  fam- 
ished, only  found  their  destination  by  aid  of  the 
fort  guns  w'hich  were  kept  booming  to  guide  them 
in.  Numbers  had  fled  to  the  French  camp  and  to 
Fort  William  Henry  for  protection,  where  Monro 
had  gone  at  the  first  of  the  trouble  to  make  com- 
plaints. 

Father  Eoubeaud,  who  had  witnessed  the  mas- 
sacre, repaired  to  the  fort  immediately  after,  and 
there  he  was  surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  weeping 


65 

women,  who  kissed  the  hem  of  his  robe  and 
begged  with  piercing  cries  for  news  of  their  hus- 
bands and  children.  The  good  priest  was  touched 
to  the  heart  but  knew  not  what  to  do  for  them. 
A  French  officer  presently  came  to  him  and  told 
him  that  in  the  camp  was  a  Huron  Indian  who 
had  captured  a  baby  of  six  months,  and  implored 
him  to  save  it.  Father  Eoubeaud,  glad  to  be  able 
to  relieve  at  least  one  of  the  sufferers,  ran  to  the 
cabin  of  the  Huron.  He  found  the  child  in  the 
arms  of  the  savage,  "  tenderly  kissing  "  his  hands 
and  playing  with  his  porcelain  beads.  The  good 
father  began  by  praising  the  valor  of  the  Huron 
people,  but  the  Indian  immediately  guessed  his 
object  and  said: 

"Hold!  Do  you  see  this  baby?  I  have  not 
stolen  it.  I  found  it  left  behind  in  haste.  You 
want  it  but  you  shall  not  have  it." 

Eoubeaud  told  him  that  the  tiny  prisoner  was 
useless  to  him  and  would  certainly  die  for  want  of 
proper  food.  The  Huron  produced  some  fat  and 
said  he  would  feed  the  baby  that,  and  if  it  did  die 
he  would  bury  it  in  some  corner  of  ground  and 
the  priest  might  then  say  all  the  prayers  he 
pleased  over  it.  The  father  offered  a  good 
sum  in  silver  for  the  child,  but  the  Indian  re- 
fused. At  last  the  fellow  demanded  anot  he- 
English  prisoner  in  exchange  for  the  baby, 
and  Father  Eoubeaud  would  have  undertaken  to 
provide  one  had  not  some  other  Indians  come 
in,  with  whom  the  Huron  held  a  consultation, 
at  which   it   was   finally   agreed   that   the    priest 


66 

should  have  the  child  in  exchange  for  an  Eng- 
lish scalp. 

"It  shall  be  forthcoming!  "  cried  the  good 
priest,  "  if  j^ou  are  a  man  of  honor,"  and  he 
hastened  off  to  the  camp  of  his  Abenaki  disciples 
and  asked  the  first  Indian  he  met  if  he  had  any 
scalps  and  if  he  would  do  him  a  favor.  The  fel- 
low, with  a  savage's  generositj-,  immediately  un- 
tied his  scalp  pouch  and  gave  Roubeaud  his  choice. 
The  priest  selected  a  scalp,  and,  followed  by  a 
curious  crowd  of  French  and  Canadians,  ran  to 
the  tent  of  the  Huron,  "  joy,"  in  his  own  words, 
seeming  "  to  furnish  "  him  "  wings." 

"See!  "  cried  he,  addressing  the  Huron,  "see 
your  paj'ment." 

"You  are  right!  "  said  the  savage  nurse,  ex- 
amining the  scalp  with  the  ej'e  of  a  connoisseur, 
"  it  is  indeed  an  English  scalp,  for  it  is  red.  Well, 
there  is  the  child;  carry  it  away,  for  it  belongs 
to  you." 

Fearing  the  Indian  might  change  his  mind,  the 
good  father  hurried  off  with  the  babj^  wrapping  it 
in  his  robe,  for  it  was  almost  naked,  the  little 
creature  crying  by  the  way  at  his  unaccustomed 
handling.  He  carried  the  habj  to  Fort  William 
Henry,  where  all  the  women  ran  to  him  when 
they  heard  the  wailings  of  the  child,  hoping  to 
find  their  own  lost  babies.  But  none  of  them 
recognized  it,  and  they  all  retired,  weeping  afresh 
over  their  own  losses.  This  left  Father  Eou- 
beaud  in  an  embarrassing  position.  The  baby 
peemed  as  likely  to  die  in  his  hands  as  in  those 


67 

of  the  Huron.  He  was  trying  to  think  what  he 
should  do,  when  an  English  officer  who  spoke 
French  approached,  and  the  priest  told  him  his 
trouble. 

"  Sir,"  said  Roubeaud,  "  I  have  just  ransomed 
this  young  infant  from  slavery,  but  it  will  not 
escape  death  unless  you  direct  some  one  of  these 
women  to  take  the  place  of  its  mother  and  nurse 
it,  until  I  shall  be  able  to  provide  for  it  other- 
wise." 

The  English  officer  found  a  woman  who  con- 
sented to  go  to  Canada  as  nurse  to  the  baby  if 
the  priest  would  answer  for  her  life  and  that  of 
her  husband  and  promise  to  send  them  back  to 
Boston. 

Father  Roubeaud  agreed  to  do  all  this, 
and  guarding  the  woman,  her  husband  and  the 
baby,  with  an  escort  of  three  grenadiers,  took 
them  to  the  Canadian  camp  on  the  Fort  Edward 
road,  where  he  lodged.  Scarcely  had  the  party 
reached  this  spot  when  a  piercing  cry  arose  and 
a  woman  came  running  toward  them.  She 
snatched  the  child  from  the  arms  of  its  new  nurse 
and  abandoned  herself  to  transports  of  joy,  for 
she  was  the  mother  of  the  baby.  Roubeaud  had 
the  pleasure  afterwards  of  reuniting  the  whole 
family,  for  he  found  the  father  of  the  child  suf- 
fering from  a  wound  made  by  the  bursting  of  a 
shell,  and  he  led  the  wife  to  his  side  in  a  lonely 
part  of  the  fort  where  he  had  crawled  on  account 
of  his  pains.  The  woman  who  had  agreed  to  act 
as   nurse   to   the   little   captive   afterwards   found 


68 

her  own  baby,  who  was  restored  to  her  through 
the  kindness  of  a  French  officer. 

Montcalm  meanwhile  was  busy  rescuing  as 
many  of  the  English  prisoners  as  possible.  Dur- 
ing the  day  he  gathered  together  about  four  hun- 
dred of  them.  These  poor  creatures  were  so 
stripped  of  their  clothing  that  the  French  general 
was  obliged  to  buy  it  back  of  the  savages  who 
had  plundered  them.  Some  Indians,  seized  with 
contrition,  voluntarily  brought  their  captives  to 
him,  saying  that  they  had  had  no  sense.  Others 
hastened  down  the  lake  with  their  prisoners,  and 
at  Montreal  got  a  good  price  for  them,  the  French 
being  bound  in  honor  to  ransom  them  and  return 
them  to  their  country.  Montcalm  sent  all  the 
fugitives  that  he  could  collect  to  Fort  Edward 
with  a  strong  guard,  which  was  hardly  needed 
now  as  the  Indians  had  sped  away  to  their  homes 
to  decorate  their  wigwams  w^ith  subdivided  scalps, 
boast  of  their  exploits  and  suffer  from  the  small- 
pox. 

The  massacre  of  Lake  George  cost  the  French 
much  of  the  fruits  of  their  victory,  and  cast  a 
stain  on  their  honor,  which,  however  unjust  it 
might  have  been,  was  painful  to  them.  The  Eng- 
lish, claiming  that  the  capitulation  had  been 
broken,  refused  to  return  the  French  prisoners 
or  detain  the  garrison  of  the  fort  from  further 
fighting,  as  had  been  agreed. 

The  first  exaggerated  accounts  of  the  massacre 
and  the  rumor  that  INIontcalm  was  advancing 
against  Fort  Edward  and  Albany  struck  terror 
6 


to  the  hearts  of  the  g-arrison  at  the  former  place, 
and  had  Montcalm  aj^peared  he  would,  perhaps, 
have  won  an  easy  victory  at  Fort  Edward.  It 
was  expected  in  Canada  that  he  would  do  so.  But 
the  facts  are  that  he  had  no  wagons  or  horses, 
his  Indians  were  g-one  and  he  had  sent  his 
Canadians  home  that  they  might  reap  the  harvests 
so  sorely  needed  in  Canada.  Many  of  his  men 
meanwhile  were  occupied  in  destroying  Fort  Wil- 
liam Henr3-;  others  were  plying  up  and  down 
the  lake  transporting  the  valuable  stores  taken 
with  the  fort  to  Ticonderoga,  and  he  felt  him- 
self in  no  condition  to  make  a  successful  re- 
sistance should  the  enemy  march  to  Lake  George 
against  him,  for  he  knew  nothing  of  the  faint- 
hearted character  of  their  general. 

Fort  William  Henry  was  razed  to  the  ground, 
its  wooden  walls  were  thrown  into  a  great  heap 
and  burned,  the  dead  bodies  in  its  casemates  and 
underground  passages  feeding  for  days  the  flames 
of  this  immense  bonfire.  Seven  days  after  the 
capitulation,  having  hidden  stores  of  cannon  balls 
and  sunk  some  boats  he  was  unable  to  carry  off, 
Montcalm  was  on  his  way  down  the  lake.  He 
left  one  battalion  encamped  on  an  island,  prob- 
ably Diamond  Island,  until  the  return  of  the 
boats,  when  they  were  brought  off,  and  Lake 
George  was  once  more  a  wilderness,  scarred  with 
siege  works  and  the  ruins  of  a  fort  and  sown 
with  the  dead. 


70 


THE  BATTLE  OF  ROGERS'  ROCK. 

During-  the  winter  of  1758  Fort  Edward  was  the 
Englisli  advance  post  and  the  lieadquarters  of 
Rogers  and  liis  rangers,  who  did  their  best  to 
plague  the  French  at  Ticonderoga.  Once  they 
spent  the  night  among  the  ruins  of  Fort  William 
Henry,  where  they  found  a  heap  of  charred  logs 
and  rafters  and  fragments  of  exploded  cannon 
covered  wdth  a  new  fallen  snow.  These  rough 
fellows  stopped  for  a  moment  to  mournfully  re- 
call how  they  had  here  enjoyed  "  many  of  the 
pleasures  of  a  soldier's  life,"  before  camping 
under  the  edge  of  the  earthworks  for  shelter 
from  a  biting  wind  which  was  tearing  up  the 
lake.  The  sharp  eyes  of  Rogers  found  some  of 
the  hidden  cannon  balls  and  discovered  the  sunken 
boats,  of  w^hich  he  took  note,  that  they  might 
be  recovered.  So  active  were  these  rangers  that 
they  w^ell-nigh  drove  the  commandant  at  Ticon- 
deroga distracted,  for  they  invaded  the  very 
ditches  of  the  fort,  took  prisoners,  burnt  wood 
piles  and  butchered  cattle,  to  the  horns  of  one 
of  which  they  once  left  tied  an  ironical  note, 
signed  by  Rogers,  in  which  he  thanked  the  French 
officer  for  the  fresh  meat  that  he  had  enjoyed 
and  sent  his  compliments  to  the  Marquis  de  Mont- 
calm. 

About  the  middle  of  March,  1758,  Rogers  was 
sent  scouting  by  the  commander  at  Fort  Edward, 
with  a  bodj^  of  one  hundred  and  eighty  men.  He 
encamped  the  first  night  at  Halfw^ay  Brook,   so 


71 

named  because  it  crossed  the  Lake  George  road 
midway  between  that  body  of  water  and  Fort 
Edward.  The  next  day  he  marched  up  the  road 
to  the  head  of  Lake  Georg-e  and  down  the  lake 
on  the  ice  to  the  beginning-  of  the  Narrows.  He 
encamped  for  the  night  on  the  ea.st  shore,  set- 
ting sentinels  at  intervals  on  land  and  keeping 
men  walking  on  the  frozen  lake  all  night  for 
fear  of  a  surprise.  The  whole  party  resumed 
their  march  at  sunrise  of  the  next  day.  A  dog 
running  across  the  ice  alarmed  Rogers,  who  feared 
that  Indians  were  near,  and  he  withdrew  his  men 
to  the  woods,  where  they  donned  snowshoes  and 
labored  along  over  four  feet  of  snow  to  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Sabbathday  Point,  where  they  all 
rested  until  night,  when  they  again  took  to  the 
ice.  An  advance  guard  of  skaters  was  sent  out, 
while  the  main  body  marched  on  through  the 
darkness,  hugging  the  west  shore  and  dragging 
toboggans  loaded  with  their  provisions.  When 
the  party  was  within  eight  miles  of  the  lower 
end  of  the  lake  a  messenger  came  skating  back 
from  the  advance  guard  telling  liogers  to  halt. 
The  men  promptly  sat  down  on  the  ice,  and 
Phillips,  who  commanded  the  advance,  presently 
came  up  with  the  news  that  he  had  seen  a  fire 
on  the  east  shore.  Rogers  immediately  hid  his 
baggage  in  a  thicket  and  leaving  a  small  guard 
with  it  marched  to  the  east  shore  in  search  of 
the  fire.  It  was  not,  however,  to  be  found,  and 
concluding  that  Phillips  had  mistaken  patches 
of  snow  or  phosphorescent  wood  for  fire,  he  re- 


72 

turned  to  his  toboggans  and  camped  there.  The 
fire  had  in  fact  been  a  real  one,  built  by  some 
French  scouts,  who  when  they  had  descried  the 
dark,  moving  objects  on  the  ice,  quickly  extin- 
guished it  and  returned  to  Fort  Ticonderoga, 
where  they  gave  warning  of  Kogers'  stolen  march. 
At  Ticonderoga  a  party  of  two  hundred  Indians 
and  a  number  of  Canadians  and  French  volunteers 
was  immediately  made  up  to  march  against  the 
pestilential  Rogers. 

Ignorant  that  the  enemy  was  warned,  Rogers 
took  up  his  march,  the  next  day,  through  the 
woods  back  of  the  mountains  on  the  west  shore. 
The  advance  to  avoid  the  deep  snow  took  its  way 
along  the  frozen  surface  of  Trout  Brook  while 
the  other  party  on  snowshoes  kept  under  the 
edge  of  the  mountain.  It  chanced  that  the  French 
and  Indians  had  chosen  this  same  stfeam  for  their 
approach  from  Ticonderoga.  It  was  three  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon  and  Rogers  was  about  west  of 
the  mountain  which  bears  his  name  when  his  ad- 
vance discovered  some  ninety  Indians  coming  to- 
ward them  on  the  icy  surface  of  the  little  stream. 
Rogers,  who  was  on  rising  ground,  immediately 
faced  his  men  toward  the  brook  and  when  the  In- 
dians came  up  opened  fire  on  them.  A  number  of 
them  fell  and  the  rest  fled,  about  half  of  Rogers' 
men  rushing  off  in  pursuit.  They  cut  down  several 
of  the  fugitives  with  hatchets  and  cutlasses,  but 
they  suddenly  found  themselves  face  to  face  with 
a  large  force  of  soldiers  who  chased  them  back 
to  Rogers'  position,  killing  fifty  of  them  by  the 


73 

way.  thoug-h  Rogers'  party  numbered  now  only 
about  one  hundred  and  thirty  men  and  the  French 
and  Indians  were  twice  or  three  times  as  numer- 
ous, he  made  a  stubborn  resistance.  His  men 
occupied  a  rising  ground  and  sheltered  them- 
selves behind  trees  where  they  fought  gallantly 
until  sunset.  Again  and  again  the  French  tried 
to  get  in  his  rear,  and  failed.  At  last  two  hun- 
dred of  the  enemy  began  ascending  the  mountain 
on  his  right  for  this  purpose.  Rogers  hurried 
forward  Lieutenant  Phillips  and  eighteen  men  to 
occupy  this  spot  before  them,  but  it  was  too  late. 
Phillips  was  surrounded,  the  men  in  Rogers'  front 
were  becoming  intermingled  with  the  enemy, 
and  one  hundred  and  eight  of  them  had  fallen, 
when  at  last  the  remnant  broke  and  fled,  each 
man  looking  out  for  himself.  Phillips  and  his 
men  surrendered  on  promise  of  good  treatment, 
but  they  had  better  have  fought  till  the  last  man 
was  killed,  for  the  Indians,  furious  over  the  losses 
which  they  had  sustained,  tied  them  to  trees  and 
hacked  them  to  pieces. 

ROGERS'    SLIDE. 

There  was  the  usual  chase.  The  wounded  and 
fatigued  fell  an  easy  prey  to  the  Indians.  Rogers, 
followed  by  about  twenty  men,  ran  up  the  moun- 
tain, stopping  from  time  to  time  to  fire  upon  the 
pursuers.  It  is  at  this  point  that  the  legend 
comes  in  which  connected  the  name  of  the  bold 
ranger  leader  forever  with  Lake  George.  Rogers, 
it  is  said,  reached  the  summit  of  this  mountain 


alone   in  his  flight  and  walking  to  the   edge   of  \ 
its  immense   rocky  precipice,   put  his   snowshoes 
on  backward  and  walked  back  to  a  spot  where 

he  could  clamber  down  to  the  lake,  thus  deceiving  ' 

the    pursuing*    Indians    who    when    thej'    reached  | 

the   summit  of  the   rock   thought   by   the   tracks  j 

that   two   men   had   thrown   themselves   down   it,  ■ 

and  seeing  Eogers  below  running  on  the  ice  con-  . 

eluded  that  there  was  some  work  of  evil  spirits  j 

in  this  and  gave  up  the  chase.     Eogers  does  not  j 

tell  this  tale  in  his  own  journal,  which  is,  how-  j 

ever,  but  a  bald  narrative,  bare  of  detail,  and  in  1 
which  he  was  evidently  anxious  to  represent  him- 
self as  making  as  orderly  a  retreat  as   possible. 

The    name    of   the    rock   bears    testimony    to    the  J 
early  belief  in  the  truth  of  the  story. 

Rogers  and  the  few  remaining  fugitives  soon  | 

found   one   another   on  the  wide   expanse   of   the  i 

frozen    lake.       There   were   a   few   wounded   men  j 

among  them  when  they  got  together  at  the  place  i 

where  they  had  hidden  their  toboggans.     A  mes-  i 
senger  was  dispatched  to  Fort  Edward  for  help, 
and  the  fugitives  spent  a  cheerless  night,  without 
fire  or  blankets,  the  latter  having  been  left  with 

their    knapsacks    on    the    field    of    battle.       The  i 

wounded    suffered   much,    but   did   not    complain.  j 

The  next  day  they  all  made  their  way  down  to  : 
Hoop    (probably    Dome)    Island,    and    here    they 

were  met  by   a  relief  party  from   Fort   Edward.  j 

The    French    rejoiced    in    the    idea    that    Rogers  j 

had  been  killed,  for  his  overcoat  and  papers  were  ^ 

found  on  the  battlefield;    but  they  found  to  their  • 


cost,  six  weeks  later,  that  he  was  still  living-  and 
ranging-  when  he  paid  them  a  visit  in  his  old 
style,  killing-  one  man  and  taking-  three  prisoners, 
almost  under  the  walls  of  Crown  Point. 

THE    BATTLE    OF   TICONDEKOGA. 

Bj^  the  year  1758  the  great  Eng-lish  minister, 
Pitt,  was  in  power,  and  he  planned  vig-orous  at- 
tacks upon  Canada  from  various  points.  One  of 
these  was  to  be  directed  against  Ticonderoga,  the 
history  of  which  comes  within  the  province  of  the 
story  of  Lake  George,  as  its  very  existence  as  a 
fortress  grows  out  of  its  command  of  the  north- 
ern entrance  to  this  lake.  By  the  conquest  of 
Ticonderoga  and  by  thus  gaining  control  of  Lake 
Champlain  and  its  outlet  into  the  St.  Lawrence, 
Pitt  hoped  to  cut  Canada  in  two.  The  command 
of  this  expedition  was  given  to  General  Aber- 
cromby,  a  heavj'  and  dull  man,  but  with  him  was 
associated  a  young  nobleman,  Lord  Howe,  who 
was  to  be  the  real  leader.  Lord  Howe's  rivals 
and  military  associates  pronounced  him  the 
"  noblest  Englishman  of  his  day  "  and  "  a  com- 
plete model  of  military  virtue."  The  Americans 
had  long  been  very  jealous  of  English  officers, 
who  were  prone  to  give  themselves  airs,  and 
treated  the  former  with  a  condescension  which 
sorely  wounded  their  pride,  but  they  all  loved 
this  young  nobleman.  One  of  his  virtues  was  a 
power  of  accommodating  himself  to  the  shifts  of 
a  frontier  life,  common  to  Frenchmen  but  rare 
among    Englishmen.     Lord   Howe    was    so    eager 


% 

indeed  to  learn  the  conditions  of  American  wai 
that  he  made  a  friend  of  the  famous  Rogers  anc^ 
joined  him  on  one  of  his  scouts  about  Lake 
George,  wearing  snowshoes,  eating  Indian  meai 
and  sleeping  on  a  bearskin  in  the  woods,  that  he 
might  learn  how  frontiersmen  marched,  ambushed 
and  retreated. 

In  June,  1758,  an  army  of  sixteen  thousand 
men  arrived  at  the  head  of  Lake  George  and  en- 
camped on  a  spot  known  as  Fort  Gage.  There 
were  nearly  ten  thousand  Americans  and  over 
six  thousand  English  regular  soldiers,  who  rue- 
full}^  regarded  themselves  as  ridiculous  figures,  for 
Lord  Howe  had  made  them  cut  off  their  hair  and 
coattails,  wear  leather  leggings  and  brown  the 
barrels  of  their  polished  guns  that  these  might 
not  be  so  readily  seen  in  the  woods.  Each  man 
carried  with  him  thirty  pounds  of  corn  meal,  and 
all  were  astonished  to  discover  that  in  this  way 
an  English  army  could  subsist  for  a  month  with- 
out the  aid  of  a  provision  train.  Officers  were 
allowed  no  bed  but  a  bearskin  and  no  baggage 
but  one  small  portmanteau  each.  Howe  even 
abolished  the  women  camp  followers  and  washed 
his  own  linen  in  a  brook,  as  an  example  to  others 
to  do  the  same.  While  the  army  was  encamped 
at  the  head  of  Lake  George  he  one  day  invited 
some  of  the  officers  to  dine  in  his  tent.  Here 
they  found  bearskins  for  carpets,  logs  for  seats, 
a  big  dish  of  pork  and  beans  set  on  the  ground 
for  a  feast  and  not  the  vestige  of  a  plate  or  knife 
and  fork  to  be  seen.     The  dismaj^ed  Englishmen 


seated  themselves  around  the  one  dish  and  tried 
to  look  unconcerned,  while  Howe  took  out  a 
pocket  knife  and  fork  and  began  to  cut  up  the 
meat. 

"  Is  it  possible,  gentlemen,"  he  exclaimed, 
"  that  you  have  come  on  this  campaign  without 
providing  yourselves  with  what  is  necessary  I  " 

Whereupon  he  presented  each  one  of  them 
with  a  pocket  knife  and  fork  in  a  leather  sheath, 
like  his  own.  Before  this,  English  officers  had 
been  in  the. habit  of  burdening  the  baggage  train 
of  an  army  with  beds,  dishes  and  delicacies  and 
cumbering  the  army  with  men  and  women  serv- 
ants, that  they  might  live  luxuriously.  With 
such  a  general,  for  Lord  Howe  was  in  fact  the 
general,  it  is  not  strange  that  everything  pro- 
gressed more  rapidly  than  on  former  expeditions 
at  Lake  George.  On  the  evening  of  the  fourth 
of  July  all  the  stores  were  loaded  in  the  boats 
which  lined  the  beach,  at  the  head  of  the  lake, 
and  by  sunrise  of  the  fifth  the  men  were  all  em- 
barked— the  largest  army  which  had  ever  ap- 
peared on  Lake  George.  There  were  nine  hun- 
dred bateaux,  or  flat-bottomed  boats,  over  thirty 
feet  long,  and  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  whale 
boats,  loaded  to  the  brim,  besides  a  great  many 
heavy  flatboats,  which  carried  the  artillery,  and 
two  *'  floating  castles,"  or  batteries.  The  Eng- 
lish regular  soldiers,  in  their  scarlet  coats,  were 
in  the  center,  the  Americans  on  either  side.  It 
was  a  sparkling  midsummer  day;  flags  were 
flying,   brass   bands   and   bagpipes   were   plaj'ing. 


7^ 

bugles  olowing,  and  the  men  were  in  high  spirits, 
thinking  they  had  never  seen  so  fine  an  army 
nor  so  lovelj'  a  sheet  of  water.  For  three  miles 
the  lake  was  entirely,  as  it  seemed,  covered  with 
boats.  When  the  army  entered  the  Narrows  it 
stretched  out  in  lines,  six  miles  long.  It  was  late 
in  the  afternoon  of  Saturday  when  the  fleet  of 
boats  reached  Sabbathday  Point  and  made  a  halt. 
There  the  men  ate  and  rested,  and  here  Lord 
Howe  lay  down  on  a  bearskin  beside  John  Stark, 
the  ranger,  afterwards  the  Revolutionary'  general, 
and  learned  from  him  all  he  knew  about  Ticon- 
deroga  and  the  country  around  it. 

It  was  already  after  midnight,  and  Sunday 
morning,  when  the  armj^  embarked  once  more, 
and  hence  the  name  of  the  point  where  these  six- 
teen thousand  men  rested.  Silently  and  with 
muffled  oars  the  mighty  fleets  of  boats  passed 
on  down  the  lake,  their  scarlet  uniforms  bursting 
suddenly  upon  the  view  of  the  French  advance 
guard,  perched  on  the  summit  of  Rogers'  Rock, 
as  the  boats  came  around  a  point  at  early  sun- 
rise. Lord  Howe  pushed  ahead  of  the  army  in 
a  whaleboat  with  Rogers  and  some  others  to 
reconnoiter  the  landing  place,  then  known  as  the 
"  Burnt  Camp,"  and  not  far  from  the  Baldwin  of 
our  day.  He  found  that  the  French  had  but  a 
small  guard  here,  and  returned  to  the  army  to 
assist  it  in  landing.  By  twelve  o'clock  the  men 
were  all  ashore,  the  French  had  retired  and 
Rogers  and  his  rangers  w^ere  sent  ahead  to  scout 
and    drive    away    any    more    of    the    enemy    that 


79 

mig'ht  be  lurkiiif,'"  Jihoiit.  Tlie  French  1)urned, 
as  thej'  retired,  the  bridge  over  the  stream  of  the 
outlet  which  makes  a  loop  between  Lake  George 
and .  the  fort,  and  were  encamped  within  this 
loop,  near  the  falls.  It  was  decided  to  march  the 
English  army  through  the  woods,  around  the 
loop,  to  avoid  the  difficulty  of  crossing"  in  the 
face  of  the  enemy.  Divided  into  four  columns, 
the  men  beg-an  their  march.  Lord  Howe,  who 
was  only  too  daring-,  at  their  head  with  a  body 
of  rangers  under  Putnam.  The  trees  were  enor- 
mous, the  woods  were  cumbered  with  fallen 
trunks  and  the  ground  was  so  rough  and  broken 
near  the  falls  in  the  stream  of  the  outlet  that 
the  English  ranks,  when  they  reached  this  point, 
became  confused.  It  chanced  that  the  French 
party  which  had  watched  the  English  landing, 
from  Eogers'  Rock,  retired  behind  the  mountains 
by  the  wav*  of  Trout  Brook  Valley  and  came  out 
near  the  stream  at  the  same  time  that  the  English 
advance  was  floundering  over  the  rocks  at  this 
place. 

"  Qui  etes  vous?  "  cried  the  French. 

"  Francais!  "  answered  the  rangers,  who  had 
had  lessons  of  Rogers,  but  their  pronunciation 
was  probably  not  deceptive,  for  the  veritable 
French  immediately  opened  fire.  The  very  first 
volley  killed  the  invaluable  and  gallant  young 
leader,  Lord  Howe.  A  panic  immediately  seized 
the  English,  always  at  a  loss  in  the  forests  of 
America.  "  Entire  regiments  flung  themselves 
one  atop  of  the  other,"  and  General  Abercrombj' 


80 

was  near  being-  drag-g-ed  away  by  the  fugitives. 
The  rangers,  however,  were  not  so  easily  alarmed. 
They  held  their  ground,  fighting-  courageously, 
Rogers,  with  another  body  of  frontiersmen,  and 
the  American  reg-iments  of  Fitch  and  Lyman  com- 
ing- to  their  assistance.  Caught  between  the  two 
forces,  the  French  fought  savagely.  When  at  last 
they  broke  many  plunged  into  the  stream  at  the 
falls  and  were  drowned  or  shot  there.  But  fifty 
out  of  three  hundred  escaped.  One  hundred  and 
forty-eight  were  captured;  the  rest  were  killed. 
The  English  lost  only  ten  killed  and  six  wounded, 
but  among  the  dead  was  Lord  Howe,  the  soul  of 
the  expedition.  The  Americans  mourned  him 
deeply,  and  afterwards  with  their  own  money 
raised  a  monument  to  him  in  Westminster  Abbey. 
General  Abercromby,  who  had  well  nigh  been 
run  off  with  by  his  own  men,  kept  the  army  in 
indecision  all  night  in  the  woods  and  retired  to 
the  landing  place  on  Lake  George  in  the  morn- 
ing. Men  were  set  to  rebuild  the  bridges  de- 
stroyed by  the  French,  and  the  English  moved 
forward  and  occupied  the  camp  within  the  loop 
of  the  stream,  which  had  been  occupied  by  the 
French  until  late  on  the  day  before,  at  which 
time  Montcalm  had  decided  to  retire  to  the  high 
grounds  back  of  Ticonderoga.  This  fort,  known 
as  Carillon  to  the  French,  was  built  in  the  usual 
manner  of  that  day  of  tw^o  log  walls  filled  in  with 
earth.  On  the  rocky  plateau  back  of  the  fort 
the  French  hastily  threw  up  a  barricade  of  logs 
topjDcd    with    bags    of    earth    and    sods.      Outside 


81 

of  this  they  felled  a  huge  abatis  of  primeval 
trees  with  the  branches  turned  outward  and  many 
of  them  sharpened.  They  worked  hard  on  their 
barricade.  All  they  wanted  was  time,  and  Gen- 
eral Abercrombj',  by  his  indecision  and  his  retreat 
to  the  landing  place  to  make  a  new  start,  gave 
it  to  them. 

Montcalm,  however,  felt  that  he  was  in  a 
desperate  situation.  He  had  less  than  four  thou- 
sand men,  he  believed  that  the  enemy  had  twenty 
or  thirty  thousand,  his  works  could  not  long 
withstand  artillery,  and  there  was  danger  that 
the  English  might  cut  him  off  from  Canada  by 
getting  between  him  and  Crown  Point.  Aber- 
cromby,  on  the  other  hand,  supposed  that  Mont- 
calm was  six  thousand  strong  and  would  soon 
receive  large  reinforcements.  Accordingly  he  de- 
cided not  to  await  a  regular  siege  but  hasten  to 
take  Ticonderoga  by  assault.  On  the  eighth  of 
July,  after  some  harmless  firing  from  Indians, 
who  had  just  arrived  under  Sir  AYilliam  John- 
son, the  English  came  on,  and  the  French  dropped 
their  shovels  and  axes  to  take  up  their  arms. 
The  English,  who  approached  in  three  columns, 
became  terribly  entangled  in  the  abatis  and  all 
order  was  lost.  The  men  pushed  on,  however, 
but  almost  all  those  who  approached  to  within 
fifteen  paces  of  the  works  were  surely  killed,  and 
some  hung  dead  on  the  sharpened  branches  of 
the  abatis. 

The  Kiiglisli  retired.  The  French  works  could 
not  to  l)e  taken  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  they 


82 

said.  Abercrombj',  who  was  himself  well  in  the 
rear,  ordered  them  on  again,  and  on  they  went 
into  the  mass  of  trees,  under  the  terrific  triple 
fire  of  an  enemy  of  whom  they  could  see  nothing- 
but  some  caps  projecting'  above  the  sods  of  the 
ramparts.  They  tried  one  point,  they  tried  an- 
other; they  combined  to  attack  the  rig-ht,  the  cen- 
ter and  the  left.  To  each  threatened  point  Mont- 
calm, in  his  shirt  sleeves,  for  it  was  hot,  ran 
with  reinforcements,  and  the  French  shouted: 

"Vive  le  roi!  Vive  notre  g-eneral!  "  and  the 
bullets  whistled. 

Twenty  bateaux  were  sent  down  the  stream 
below  the  falls  to  get  around  the  fort  but  its 
cannon  sunk  two  of  them  and  the  rest  retired. 
Six  times  their  own  indomitable  courage  and 
the  stupid  stubbornness  of  their  general  flung 
the  Eng'lish  against  the  French  defenses;  for 
six  hours  they  struggled  up  in  face  of  a  mur- 
derous fire.  Once  a  French  officer  in  his  excite- 
ment tied  a  handkerchief  to  his  gun  and  waved 
it  in  defiance.  Some  of  the  English,  taking  this 
for  a  sign  of  surrender,  ran  forward,  hoWing 
their  muskets  above  their  heads  and  crying, 
*'  Quarter!  "  The  French,  supposing  in  their  turn 
that  these  men  wished  to  surrender,  mounted 
ihe  breastworks  to  receive  them,  but  an  officer 
convinced  them  that  they  were  fooled,  when  they 
delivered  a  volley  at  the  English,  who  thereupon 
took  it  all  for  a  bit  of  French  deceit.  A  Ehode 
Island  man  named  William  Smith  managed  to 
get  under  the  very  edge  of  the  breastworks, 
7 


83 

where  he  contrived  to  kill  several  Frenchmen. 
At  last  the3^  discovered  him,  and  firing  down  on 
him  wounded  him  g-ravely;  but  he  sprang-  up 
nevertheless  and  brained  a  Frenchman  on  the 
other  side  of  the  barricade  with  his  hatchet.  An 
Eng-lish  officer  who  saw  this  action  sent  men  to 
bring-  him  off. 

At  five  o'clock  the  Eng-lish  made  a  determined 
assault  upon  the  rig-ht  of  the  French,  hewing-  their 
way  to  the  foot  of  the  breastworks,  dying-  Scotch- 
men in  the  Hig-hland  reg-iment  calling  lo  their 
comrades  "  not  to  lose  a  thoug-ht  upon  them  but 
to  mind  the  honor  of  their  country."  Their  major, 
Campbell,  of  Inverawe,  who,  according-  to  tra- 
dition, had  been  warned  of  his  death  at  an  un- 
known place  named  Ticonderoga  bj'  the  ghost  of 
a  murdered  cousin  whose  slayer  he  unwittingly 
sheltered,  was  wounded  in  the  arm  and  died  in- 
stead at  Fort  Edward,  rather,  it  seems  to  me, 
of  the  unskilful  surgery  of  the  day  than  of  the 
injury.  Twenty- -five  Highland  officers  were  killed 
or  wounded  in  this  fierce  assault,  one  of  their 
captains  and  a  few  men  even  mounting  the  breast- 
works and  gaining  the  inside,  where  they  were 
bayoneted.  All  was  in  vain.  One  more  effort  was 
made  at  six  o'clock  and  then  the  English  fell 
back,  the  rangers  and  some  other  Americans 
keeping  up  a  distant  fire  to  cover  the  retreat 
and  the  removal  of  the  wounded.  The  English 
lost  about  nineteen  hundred,  some  six  hundred 
of  whom  were  killed  outright.  The  French  losses 
>vere  three  hundred  and  seventv-seven.    Never  had 


84 

human    life    and    courage    been    more    shamefully 
thrown  away. 

The  English  had  still  abundant  forces  and  all 
the  cannon  for  a  siege,  but  the}'  were  disheartened 
by  their  bitter  and  wasteful  defeat  and  they  were 
without  a  leader.  To  the  astonishment  of  the 
French  they  were  soon  in  full  retreat  up  Lake 
Georg-e,  bearing-  with  them  their  sorrowful  burden 
of  wounded  and  their  wooden-headed  general, 
and  leaving  behind  them  baggage,  provisions, 
everj'thing,  even  to  a  number  of  shoes  stuck  in 
the  mud  of  a  marsh  through  which  the  army 
hastened.  The  men  w^ere  greatly  disgusted  with 
Abercrombj^  and  he  was  afterwards  known  to 
his  own  soldiers  as  "  Mrs.  Nabby  Cromby." 

PUTNAM'S   ADVENTURE. 

After  the  Battle  of  Ticonderoga  Abercromby 
lay  at  the  head  of  Lake  George.  He  busied  his 
men  in  rebuilding  Fort  William  Henry  and  level- 
ing the  siege  works  of  Montcalm,  on  the  site  of 
the  present  village  of  Caldwell,  while  detachments 
of  the  army  were  sent  to  other  points,  where  the 
war  was  carried  on  with  more  vigor.  Montcalm, 
who  was  meanwhile  reinforced,  lay  at  Ticon- 
deroga, strengthening  and  improving  the  hasty 
works  which  had  heli:)ed  him  to  withstand  the 
determined  assault  of  Abercromby's  army.  He 
also  sent  large  parties  of  men  down  South  Bay 
to  cut  off  the  English  supplies  as  they  were 
hauled  up  from  Fort  Edw^ard.  One  of  these  par- 
ties succeeded  in  destroying  a  large  wagon  train 


85 

and  killing  one  hundred  and  sixteen  men,  at  Half- 
^vay  lirook,  and  Abercroniby  immediately  des- 
patched Ivogers  with  seven  hundred  men  down 
Lake  Georg-e  and  across  the  mountains  on  the 
east  shore  to  waylay  the  Frenchmen  who  had 
destroyed  the  wagons.  Rogers  arrived  at  South 
Bay  too  late  to  intercept  the  enemy.  He 'was  on 
his  return  to  Lake  George  when  he  was  met  by 
messengers  from  Abercromby  with  orders  to  turn 
back  and  go  in  search  of  a  party  which  had  been 
reported  as  hovering  about  Fort  Edward.  Rogers 
made  his  way  back  to  the  crumbling  ruins  of  Fort 
Anne  for  this  purpose,  and  here  he  encamped 
for  the  night.  Though  he  had  forbidden  fires, 
for  fear  of  discovery,  he  and  an  English  officer 
who  was  of  the  party  so  far  forgot  caution  as 
to  fire  at  a  mark  the  following  morning  be- 
fore breaking  camp,  that  they  might  decide  a 
wager. 

It  happened  that  the  five  hundred  Indians  and 
French,  under  the  leadership  of  a  famous  French 
partisan,  named  Marin,  of  whom  Rogers  was  in 
search,  were  within  earshot  of  this  firing  and  im- 
mediately laid  a  semicircular  ambush  across  the 
path  leading  to  Fort  Edward,  where  it  ran 
through  a  dense  thicket  which  had  grown  up  in 
the  former  clearing  around  Fort  Anne.  After 
the  wager  had  been  settled  Rogers'  party  took 
up  their  march  in  single  file  along  the  narrow 
path  through  the  overgrown  clearing.  Major  Israel 
Putnam  taking  the  lead.  Just  at  the  approach 
to  the  larger  woods  the  Indians  fired,  and  a  large 


86 

Caughnawaga  sprang*  upon  Putnam,  whose  g"un 
failed  him  when  he  snapped  it  at  the  fellow's 
breast.  He  was  captured  and  the  Indian  bound 
him  to  a  tree.  The  rangers  pushed  their  way  up 
to  the  point  of  attack,  greatly  impeded  by  the 
young-  sapling-s  of  the  clearing.  The  fight  was 
an  obstinate  one.  Once  the  rangers  fell  back  and 
the  Indians  and  French  pressed  upon  them. 
Again,  the  French  retreated  and  made  a  stand 
farther  on.  These  movements  left  the  unfor- 
tunate Putnam  tied  to  a  tree  between  two  fires. 
The  bullets  flew  around  him,  often  lodging  in 
the  tree  to  which  he  was  bound,  and  several  cut 
the  sleeves  and  skirts  of  his  coat.  At  last  the 
French  and  Indians  gradually  fell  away,  but  not 
until  the  Caughnawaga  had  unbound  Putnam  and 
taken  him  along.  Rogers  remained  on  the  battle- 
field and  buried  the  dead.  He  then  made  litters 
of  the  branches  of  trees  and  carried  the  wounded 
toward  Fort  Edward,  until  he  was  met  by  a  de- 
tachment wdth  wagons. 

Putnam,  left  meanw^hile  to  the  mercy  of  a 
brutal  and  defeated  foe,  after  having  been  robbed 
of  coat,  vest,  shoes  and  stockings  by  the  savages 
and  hit  with  the  muzzle  of  a  gun  by  a  petty 
French  officer,  was  driven  through  the  woods 
by  his  captors,  his  bare  feet  bleeding,  his  back 
laden  with  the  packs  of  their  wounded  and 
his  hands  tied  together  so  tightly  that  they 
swelled.  The  torture  of  his  w-rists  was  so  great 
that  he  begged  the  Indians  to  kill  him,  and  a 
French  officer  who  heard  the  request  untied  his 


87 

hands  and  removed  some  of  the  burdens  from 
his  back,  while  his  captor  furnished  him  a  pair 
of  moccasins.  Before  they  had  completed  their 
march,  however,  a  savage  wantonly  wounded  him 
on  the  cheek  with  a  tomahawk.  When  night  had 
come  the  Indians  bound  Putnam  to  a  stake,  and 
gathering  dry  wood  piled  it  about  him.  They  set 
fire  to  the  wood,  but  a  summer  shower  put  out 
the  flames.  The  shower  soon  passed  and  the  wood 
was  lighted  again.  The  Indians  danced  and  yelled 
around  their  victim  as  the  flames  rose  and  he 
began  to  writhe  with  the  torture  of  the  fire.  It 
was  at  this  moment  that  the  French  leader,  Marin, 
rushed  through  the  fiendish  crowd,  and  scatter- 
ing the  burning  brushwood,  cut  Putnam  loose 
from  the  stake,  storming  the  while  at  the  Indians 
for  their  crueltj-.  He  then  turned  Putnam  over 
cO  his  savage  master,  who  it  seems  was  not  un- 
willing to  preserve  his  prisoner.  When  the  latter 
found  that  Putnam  was  unable  to  eat  hard  bread 
on  account  of  his  wounded  cheek  he  moistened 
some  for  him.  The  captive  was  secured  for  the 
night  in  a  common  Indian  fashion,  by  the  tying 
of  his  legs  and  arms,  as  he  lay  on  the  ground, 
to  young  saplings,  and  laying  slender  poles  across 
his  body,  on  the  ends  of  which  some  Indians 
slept  that  they  might  be  awakened  by  his  least 
movement.  As  he  lay  thus  he  smiled  to  think 
of  his  ridiculous  plight.  The  next  day  he  was 
led  to  Ticonderoga,  the  Indians  showing  on  the 
way  by  menacing  gestures  how  great  was  their 
(lisapjwintment  at  having  missed  their  night's  en- 


tertainment.  From  Ticonderog'a  he  was  removed 
to  Canada,  where  he  was  kindly  treated  and 
presently  exchanged. 

LAST    SCENES    OF   THE   FRENCH    WAR   ABOUT 
LAKE   GEORGE. 

In  spite  of  Montcalm's  victory  at  Tieonderoga 
it  was  but  a  few  days  later  that  he  began  to  fore- 
see the  necessity  of  abandoning  this  important 
post.'  Canada  was  by  this  time  in  great  distress; 
her  people  were  suffering  for  food,  she  was  gov- 
erned by  a  ring  of  speculators  who  were  amass- 
ing fortunes  out  of  her  ruin,  and  France  was  no 
longer  able  to  come  to  her  aid,  one  of  her  min- 
isters saying  that  when  the  house  was  on  fire 
it  was  impossible  to  think  of  the  stable.  Though 
Pitt's  schemes  had  failed  at  Tieonderoga,  they 
succeeded  on  Lake  Ontario,  where  the  taking  of 
Fort  Frontenac  cut  oil  Canada's  connection  with 
her  inland  posts.  The  capture  of  Louisburg  mean- 
while had  gained  the  control  of  the  mouth  of  the 
St.  Lawrence,  and  the  fall  of  Fort  DuQuesne  lost 
P'rance  the  Ohio  Valley.  The  hand  of  the  great 
English  minister  was  felt  everywhere  except  at 
Lake  George,  where  Lord  Howe  was  dead  and 
"  Mrs.  Xabby  Cromby  "  ruled  supreme. 

The  final  great  struggle  came  in  1759,  when 
General  Wolfe  advanced  against  Quebec.  To  co- 
operate with  him  from  the  rear  eleven  thousand 
men  gathered  at  Lake  George  under  General  Am- 
herst, who  was  to  make  a   descent   into   Canada 


80 

by  way  of  Lake  George,  Lake  Champlain  and  the 
St.  Lawrenee.  General  Amherst  was  a  new  style 
of  commander  to  these  regions — a  famous  fort 
builder.  Wherever  he  went  forts  were  sown 
broadcast — no  frontier  log*  walls,  but  line,  expen- 
sive stone  affairs.  Ignoring-  the  one  which  Aber- 
cromby  had  begun  the  year  before  on  the  site  of 
Fort  William  Henry,  Amherst  laid  out  an  exten- 
sive work,  named  Fort  George,  on  the  spot  where 
the  former  entrenched  camp  had  stood.  Only  one 
bastion  of  this  massive  affair  was  ever  finished. 
Amherst's  fort  building  energies  were  not  alone 
devoted  to  this  work,  but  posts  were  erected  at 
intervals  on  the  road  between  Lake  George  and 
Fort  Edward,  particularly  at  Halfway  Brook, 
while  the  woods  were  cut  for  a  wide  distance 
along  this  track  that  wagon  trains  might  no 
longer  be  in  danger  of  Indian  surprises.  The 
army  at  Lake  George  was  in  1759  composed  half 
of  English  regular  troops  and  half  of  Americans. 
The  men  were  drilled  in  firing  by  platoons  and 
practised  in  firing  at  marks  and  in  forest  war- 
fare; they  cut  marsh  hay  for  hospital  beds, 
scouted,  made  spruce  beer  to  Avard  off  the  scurvy, 
amused  themselves  with  fishing  and  swimming 
and  were  marched  to  the  lake  "  every  fair  day  " 
to  wash  their  faces  and  hands. 

It  was  the  twenty-first  of  July  when  Amherst's 
men  gathered  together  in  boats  on  the  beach  at 
the  head  of  Lake  George  and  embarked  for  Tieon- 
deroga.  Once  more  a  noble  army  covered  the 
waters  of  the  lake  and  moved  through  its  length, 


90 

to  the  sound  of  martial  music.  At  night  at  the 
lo\ver  end  of  the  lake  this  fleet  of  boats  was  struck 
by  a  summer  gale  but  weathered  it  safely  and 
landed  next  morning,  after  driving  back  the 
French  at  the  landing  j)lace.  The  French  at 
Ticonderoga  were  commanded  now  bj'  an  officer 
named  Burlamaque.  He  had  almost  as  many 
men  as  had  Montcalm  the  year  before,  when 
Abercromby  was  routed,  but  he  had  orders  to 
abandon  the  forts  on  Lake  Champlain  when  the 
English  should  appear  and  retire  to  an  island  in 
the  Kichelieu  River,  where  he  could  the  more 
easily  defend  Montreal,  for  it  was  seen  that  the 
branches  must  be  abandoned  since  the  heart  of 
the  colony  was  at  stake.  For  fear  that  the  Eng- 
lish might  suspect  his  plans  and  cut  off  his  re- 
treat Burlamaque  busily  strengthened  the  works 
of  Ticonderoga  as  though  he  meant  to  make  a 
determined  defense.  The  barricade  w^hich  Aber- 
cromby's  men  had  so  vainly  stormed  the  year 
before  was  now  abandoned,  though  it  was  more 
stronglj^  built  of  earth  and  logs,  and  the  English 
encamped  under  its  very  edge  for  shelter  from 
the  cannon  of  the  fort.  The  first  night  after  the 
arrival  of  the  enemy  Burlamaque  secretly  retired 
from  Ticonderoga,  leaving  an  officer  named  Hebe- 
court  with  four  hundred  men  to  defend  the  works 
a  while  longer  and  detain  the  English. 

General  Amherst  began  a  regular  siege  in  a 
manner  which  would  probably  have  reduced  this 
post  the  year  before.  For  four  daj's  the  garrison 
kept  up  a  steady  cannonade  upon  the  besieging 


91 

army  until  Amherst's  batteries  were  nnally 
erected  and  ready  to  open  fire  the  next  day.  It 
was  then  that  at  ten  o'clock  at  nig-ht  three  de- 
serters came  running-  into  the  Eng-lish  camp  with 
news  that  Hebecourt  and  the  garrison  were  mak- 
ing" off  in  boats,  having-  left  a  slow  match  burn- 
ing in  the  powder  magazines  of  the  fort.  Loth 
to  see  a  tort  destroyed,  Amherst  offered  a  hun- 
dred guineas  to  the  one  of  these  men  who  would 
lead  the  way  to  the  match,  that  it  might  be  cut, 
but  this  was  beyond  the  courage  of  a  deserter, 
and  an  hour  later  there  was  a  tremendous  ex- 
plosion. One  bastion  only  of  the  fort  was  blown 
up.  The  barracks,  however,  were  burned,  and 
while  there  still  remained  danger  of  more  ex- 
plosions, a  sergeant  risked  his  life  to  haul  down 
the  French  flag  still  flj'ing  on  the  ramparts  of 
Ticonderoga. 

Shortly  afterward  the  French  abandoned  and 
destroyed  Crown  Point,  on  the  approach  of  Am- 
herst, and  retired  to  Isle-aux-Xoix,  in  the  Riche- 
lieu River,  where  they  fortified  themselves  "  to 
the  teeth."  As  the  French  had  several  vessels  on 
Lake  Champlain  Amherst  was  obliged  to  spend 
the  summer  and  fall  waiting  for  the  building  of  a 
small  fleet  of  vessels,  out  of  boards  made  at  a 
primitive  sawmill  at  Ticonderoga,  which  often 
broke  down  under  the  strain.  In  tliis  way  the 
warm  season  was  wasted  and  Wolfe  took  (Quebec 
without  Amherst's  aid,  though  the  latter  general 
had  the  satisfaction  of  building  a  tine  new  fort 
at  Crown  Point. 


92 

The  following  j'ear,  1760,  Brig-adier  General 
Haviland  descended  Lake  George  on  his  way  to 
aid  in  the  final  conquest  of  the  remnant  of  Canada 
which  still  held  out.  He  reached  ]Montreal  by  way 
of  Lake  Champlain  about  the  same  time  that 
armies  from  the  upper  and  lower  St.  Lawrence 
did,  and  combined  with  them  to  bring  about  the 
fall  of  this  town,  with  which  the  conquest  of 
Canada  was  complete.  Lake  George  slumbered 
once  more  in  solitude,  until  the  breaking  out  of 
the  war  of  the  Revolution. 

ETHAN  AI.I.EN  AT   TICONDEROGA. 

For  fifteen  years  Ticonderoga's  guns  slept,  its 
garrison  of  forty-eight  men  amusing  themselves 
as  best  they  might  and  its  parade  a  play  ground 
for  soldiers'  children  and  the  sons  of  one  or  two 
frontier  farmers  who  had  invaded  this  country. 
With  the  fall  of  Canada,  indeed,  this  great  water 
route  had  lost  its  strategic  value,  but  with  the 
first  breaking  out  of  the  Revolutionary  war  its 
possession  became  once  more  of  vast  importance. 
There  were  men  in  Xew  England  who  immedi- 
ately saw  this  and  the  necessit}'  for  quick  action 
to  forestall  the  English  government;  and  thus  it 
came  about  that  one  night  in  the  May  of  1775 
Ethan  Allen  with  two  hundred  and  thirty  Green 
Mountain  boys  arrived  opposite  Ticonderoga. 
Boats  were  scarce  but  Allen  secured  enough  to 
set  over  himself  and  eightj-three  men,  together 
with  a  farmer's  boy  who  knew  the  way  to  the 
wicket  gate  of  the  fort,  which  stood  open.     As 


morning  was  fast  approaching"  and  all  depended 
on  a  surprise  Allen  did  not  wait  for  the  return 
of  the  boats  with  the  remainder  of  the  men,  but 
after  haranguing  those  he  had  and  appealing  to 
their  pride  in  the  reputation  of  the  Green  Moun- 
tain boys  for  dash,  he  marched  them  to  the 
wicket  gate,  where  the  sentinel  snapped  his 
gun  at  him  and  then  ran  within  the  fort  to 
hide  under  a  bomb  proof.  The  Green  Moun- 
tain boys  were  not  slow  in  following  him  and 
were  soon  forming  on  the  parade  within  the  fort, 
facing  the  barracks  on  either  side  and  giving 
three  huzzas  to  rouse  the  sleeping  men.  Allen 
slashed  at  one  of  the  sentries  who  made  a  pass 
at  one  of  his  officers  and  then  forced  him  to  lead 
the  way  to  the  commandant's  sleeping  room, 
w  here  he  thundered  at  the  door  of  Captain  Dela- 
place,  for  this  was  his  name,  threatening  to  sacri- 
fice the  whole  garrison  if  he  did  not  immediately 
appear.  The  captain  hastened  to  comply,  his 
breeches  in  his  hands. 

*'  Deliver  me  this  fort,  instantly,"  said  Allen. 

"  By  what  authority  do  you  demand  it?  "  asked 
Delaplace. 

"  In  the  name  of  the  great  Jehovah  and  the 
Continental  Congress!  "  replied  Ethan  Allen,  who 
is  said  to  have  had  about  as  much  respect  for  the 
one  authority  as  the  British  commandivnt  had 
for  the  other. 

Allen  enforced  his  commands  by  holding  a 
drawn  sword  over  the  captain's  head,  and  his  men 
having  by  this  time  beaten  down  the  doors  of  the 


94 

other  barracks  the  fort  was  soon  in  the  hands  of 
the  Green  Mountain  boys,  who,  when  their  com- 
rades had  arrived  from  across  the  w-ater;  "  tossed 
around  the  flowing-  bowl,"  to  signalize  their  con- 
quest. The  spoils  were  one  hundred  and  twenty 
cannon,  some  swivels  and  mortars,  tons  of  musket 
balls,  flints,  shells,  small  arms,  powder,  flour,  pork, 
beans,  peas  and  materials  for  boat  building.  By 
the  orders  of  Congress  the  captured  cannon  and 
stores  were  removed  to  the  head  of  Lake  George 
for  safe  keeping,  as  Congress  declared,  until  "  the 
restoration  of  harmony,"  which  in  that  early 
stage  of  the  war  was  much  talked  about  between 
England  and  her  colonies.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
many  of  these  cannon  afterwards  figured  in  the 
siege  of  Boston,  for  they  were  removed  from 
Lake  George  the  next  winter  on  fifty  sledges, 
drawn  by  eighty  yoke  of  oxen,  and  reached  Bos- 
ton ia  time  to  make  it  possible  for  Washington 
to  drive  the  Ewglish  army  out  of  that  city. 

BENJAMIN  FKANKLIN  ON  LAKE  GEORGE. 

At  the  outset  of  the  Revolutionaiy  war  the 
Americans  thought  to  carry  everything  by  dash, 
and  the  fall  o-f  Ticonderoga  was  followed  by  a 
hasty  invasion  of  Canada,  which  in  the  spring  of 
1776  bade  fair  to  fail  because  of  the  smallpox, 
poverty  and  the  ill-will  of  the  Canadians,  tired 
of  the  exactions  of  invaders.  Congress  sent  com- 
missioners to  Canada  to  try  to  unravel  their 
army's  entangled  affairs.  They  were  Benjamin 
Franklin,   Samuel   Chase   and   Charles  Carroll,   of 


95 

Carrollton.  They  ascended  the  Hudson  in  a 
sloop  and  were  four  days  making-  the  journey. 
At  Albany  they  were  entertained  by  General 
Schuyler,  his  wife  and  two  lively,  black-eyed 
daughters,  Betsey  and  Pegg-y,  all  of  whom  ac- 
companied the  gentlemen  in  a  springless  wagon 
to  their  country  home  at  Saratoga.  Here  they 
waited  a  week  for  the  ice  in  Lake  George  to  show 
signs  of  breaking  up,  Franklin  suffering  greatly 
from  the  fatigue  of  the  journey-.  On  the  sixteenth 
of  April  the  commissioners  took  their  way  to 
Lake  George.  Snow  was  still  on  the  ground  and 
when  after  two  days  of  hard  riding  they  reached 
the  head  of  the  lake  they  found  the  ice  still  float- 
ing about  in  the  water  in  large  cakes.  General 
Schuyler  had  gone  before  them  to  prepare  a  boat, 
and  he  had  a  bateau,  thirty-six  feet  long,  eight 
wide  and  one  foot  deep,  fitted  up  with  a  sail  and 
awning  made  of  blankets.  This  primitive  craft 
set  sail  on  Lake  George  at  one  o'clock  on  April 
the  nineteenth,  1776.  She  made  four  miles  and 
then  the  passengers  went  ashore  and  made  tea. 
It  took  thirty-six  hours  to  descend  the  lake  in  the 
boat  of  the  blanket  sail,  battered  about  as  she 
was  by  cakes  of  floating  ice,  Carroll  indulging 
by  the  way  in  regrets  that  it  was  too  early  in  the 
season  to  catch  the  famous  fish  of  these  waters. 
The  bateau  was  placed  on  wheels  and  drawn 
across  the  neck  of  land  between  Lake  George  and 
Lake  Champlain  by  six  yoke  of  oxen.  The  com- 
missioners reached  Canada  in  the  course  of  time 
and  found  the  case  of  the  armv  hopeless  in  case 
8 


96 

of  the  approach  of  an  English  army.  Franklin- 
suffering-  from  the  hardshijjs  of  the  journey  and 
the  gout,  returned  through  Lake  George  in  the 
boat  of  the  blanket  sail,  junketing  by  the  way 
on  land  at  various  points,  and  journeyed  down 
the  Hudson,  by  wagon,  his  bones  well-nigh  broken 
on  the  stony  and  gullied  road  he  traversed,  such 
being  the  perils  of  American  travel  in  1776. 

BURGOYNE    IN   CONTROL   OF   LAKE    GEORGE. 

Once  more  a  great  army  descended  through  the 
Champlain  Valley,  but  this  time  it  was  an  Eng- 
lish instead  of  a  French — Englishmen  ranged 
against  those  Americans  by  whose  side  they  had 
fought  seventeen  years  before,  and  bent  upon  cut- 
ting the  rebellious  colonies  in  two  by  way  of  the 
Hudson  Valley.  In  the  summer  of  1777  General 
Burgoyne  with  an  army  of  ten  thousand  men 
sailed  up  Lake  Champlain  and  captured  Ticon- 
deroga  without  a  blow  by  erecting-  -a  battery  on 
a  mountain  overlooking  its  wori,  The  Ameri- 
cans had  been  to  much  pains  to  strengthen  this 
fort  and  great  was  their  disappointment  at  its 
loss.  The  fall  of  Ticonderoga  induced  them  to 
abandon  Fort  George,  for  if  the  former  work 
could  be  overlooked  by  cannon  the  latter  could 
much  more  easily  be  tauten  in  the  same  way. 
The  uselessness  of  these  fortifications  of  the 
French  struggle,  in  the  War  of  Independence^ 
shows  how  great  had  been  the  improvement  in 
the  science  of  war  in  the  few  years  that  had  in- 
tervened.    General  Schuyler  was  unjustly  blamed 


A  mountain  strtani. 


97 

for  the  abandonment  of  these  two  posts  and  was 
oblig"ed  to  defend  himself  to  General  Washing-- 
ton,  in  the  Fort  George  matter,  by  explaining 
that  Fort  George  was  but  a  bastion  of  an  unfin- 
ished fort,  in  which  was  but  one  barrack,  capable 
of  holding  not  more  than  thirty  or  forty  men. 
There  was  no  cistern  and  no  picket  to  keep  the 
enemy  from  overrunning  the  wall.  It  was  com- 
manded by  the  old  Fort  William  Henry  site, 
"  within  point  blank  shot,"  and  five  hundred  men 
might  have  lain,  he  said,  between  "  this  extreme- 
ly defensible  fortress  "  and  the  lake  without  being 
discovered  by  its  garrison. 

After  the  chase  of  the  Ticonderoga  garrison  the 
English  army  assembled  at  Skeenesborough,  as 
Whitehall  was  then  called,  at  the  head  of  Lake 
Champlain,  and  Burgoj-ne  chose  to  march  from 
this  jDlace  to  Fort  Edward  instead  of  returning 
to  Ticonderoga  to  take  the  easier  route  through 
Lake  George  and  by  way  of  the  old  military  road 
of  the  French  war.  The  Skeenesborough  route, 
which  involved  much  the  most  land  travel,  was 
made  immensely  more  difficult  by  General  Schuy- 
ler, who  had  caused  ditches  to  be  dug,  bridges 
to  be  broken  and  trees  to  be  felled  across  what 
road  then  existed.  Besides  removing  these  ob- 
stacles, Burg03ne  was  obliged  to  build  more  than 
forty  bridges  across  streams  and  marshes,  one  of 
which  was  more  than  two  miles  long.  This  ex- 
pensive road  building  detained  the  army  so  long' 
as  to  give  the  Americans  time  to  recover  from 
their  first  disheartenment  and  gather  their  forces 


98 

for  a  resistance.  The  English  general  was  after- 
ward blamed  for  choosing  the  Fort  Anne  route 
and  foolishly  made  the  feeble  excuse  that  Fort 
Georg-e  would  have  detained  him  too  long.  It  has 
been  said  that  Major  Skeene,  the  Tory  founder  of 
Whitehall,  persuaded  his  friend,  Burgoyne,  to 
take  this  route  that  a  good  road  might  be  built 
between  his  town  and  Fort  Edward.  However 
that  may  be,  Lake  George  afterwards  became  the 
route  for  the  forwarding  of  stores,  and  portions 
of  Burgoyne's  army  went  south  this  wa}'.  The 
English  early  occupied  the  abandoned  Fort 
George,  but  they  thought  it  so  indefensible  that  a 
garrison  was  also  placed  on  Diamond  Island,  to 
afford  protection  to  the  numbers  of  boats  which 
were  now  daily  plying  up  and  down  the  waters 
of  Lake  George.  Burgoyne  did  not  imitate  the 
spartan  example  of  Lord  Howe,  for  his  army  wa& 
cumbered  by  the  transportation  of  various  luxu- 
ries for  the  use  of  the  officers,  and  ever}'  night, 
even  up  to  the  verj'  eve  of  final  misfortune,  he 
dined  heaviljr  in  his  tent,  leaving  mounds  of  wine 
bottles  at  his  camping  places.  All  seemed  more 
like  a  pleasure  excursion  than  an  invasion,  and 
while  the  English  were  yet  making  triump)hant 
though  slow  progress  southward  two  ladies  made 
their  way  through  Lake  George  to  join  their  hus- 
bands, who  were  officers  in  the  English  army. 
They  were  the  first  women  to  see  this  lake,  except 
the  few  wives  of  common  soldiers  and  camp  fol- 
lowers. Lad}^  Harriet  Ackland.  "  a  delicate  little 
piece  of  quality,"  went  through  here  in  search  of 


99 

her  husband,  who  had  been  wounded  near  Ticon- 
derog-a.  Her  story  is  a  romantic  one.  Major 
Ackland  was  again  wounded,  and  captured  as 
well,  in  the  Battle  of  Saratog-a.  Lady  Ackland 
made  the  perilous  journey  to  the  American  camp 
one  rainy  night,  under  the  protection  of  an  Eng-- 
lish  chaplain,  that  she  might  nurse  her  husband. 
The  major  recovered  but  afterward  fell  in  a  duel 
in  England,  Lady  Ackland  lost  her  mind  lor 
some  time  after  his  death,  though  he  wa^-  a  rude, 
drinking  man,  but  she  finally  recovered  and  mar- 
ried the  chaplain  who  had  had  -the  devotion  to  ac- 
company her  on  that  perilous  expedition  in  the  rain 
to  the  American  army,  after  the  Battle  of  Saratoga. 
Another  lady  to  make  the  journey  up  Lake 
George,  during*  the  summer,  was  the  Baroness  de 
Eiedesel,  wife  of  the  German  general  of  that  name 
in  Burgojne's  army.  She  had  three  little  children 
with  her,  one  a  young  baby,  and  two  maids.  She 
had  come  all  the  way  from  Germany  alone,  in 
spite  of  the  opposition  of  her  family,  that  she 
might  be  with  her  husband  and  be  assured  from 
day  to  daj^  of  his  safety.  After  a  tedious  jour- 
ney she  had  reached  the  army  in  Canada  but  a 
few  days  before  its  departure  and  had  begged  to 
be  allowed  to  follow  him,  promising  to  bear  every- 
thing and  make  no  complaints.  He  refused  to 
take  her,  but  some  time  later  when  Lady  Ack- 
land joined  the  army  he  sent  an  officer  after  her 
and  she  and  her  famih*  made  the  journey  through 
Lake  Champlaln  and  Lake  George  and  reached  the 
English  camp  at  Fort  Edward,  shortly  before  com- 


100 

mimication  was  cut  off  between  the  armj'-  ancj 
Lake  Georg'e.  She  was  perfectly  happy  to  dine 
with  her  husband  in  a  barn  and  lodge  in  any 
settler's  house  that  might  be  found.  She  traveled 
in  a  calash  which  had  been  broug-ht  from  Can- 
ada for  this  purpose.  When  misfortune  befell 
the  British  army  she  retreated  to  a  cellar  with 
her  children,  where  she  was  crowded  in  with  the 
wounded  and  dying",  and  finally  when  the  capitu- 
lation took  place  drove  into  the  American  camp, 
trembling"  at  the  ordeal,  but  only  to  be  g"reeted 
with  tears  by  the  kind  General  Schuyler,  who 
took  her  children  in  his  arms  and  kissed  them. 
Tie  entertained  them  all  in  his  own  home  in  Al- 
bany. This  noble  German  lady  was  long  a  i)ris- 
oner  in  America,  where  two  more  of  her  children 
were  born,  one  of  which  she  named  America  and 
the  other  Canada. 

Burg"oyne  did  not  wish  to  build  posts  along"  the 
Hudson  to  protect  his  communications  with  Lak^ 
Georg'e,  choosing"  rather  to  wait  at  Fort  Edward 
until  enoug"h  supplies  had  been  broug-ht  throug"h 
this  lake  to  last  the  army  for  a  month  and  then 
abandon  his  communications  and  march  on  for 
Albany. 

THE    BATTLE    OF   DIAMOND    ISLAND. 

While  Burg-oyne  was  on  his  march  to  Albany 
an  adventurous  American  officer.  Colonel  Brown, 
surprised  Ticonderog-a  on  the  tenth  of  September. 
He  captured  two  hundred  and  ninetj'-three  men 
of  the  English  regiment  at  the  landing  place  at 


1 

101 

the  lower  end  of  the  lake,  besides  several  cannon, 
a  sloop  and  two  hundred  bateaux,  at  the  same 
time  releasing-  one  hundred  American  prisoners 
whom  he  found  in  captivity  there.  He  summoned 
the  fort  to  surrender  but  had  no  means  of  forcing" 
it  to  do  so,  so  he  fitted  out  instead  a  fleet  of 
twenty  sail,  of  the  captured  boats,  three  only  of 
which  were  armed,  the  larg-est  vessel  carrying- 
only  three  cannon.  These  boats  he  manned  with 
about  four  hundred  and  twenty  men,  among^ 
whom  were  the  recaptured  Americans,  and  sailed 
against  Diamond  Island.  It  must  at  best  have 
been  a  primitive-looking  fleet,  with  its  one  sloop 
and  the  awkward  flat-bottomed  bateaux,  fitted 
perhaps  with  the  blanket  sails  which  prevailed 
on  Lake  George  in  early  dajs.  Brown's  plan  was 
to  make  the  distance  in  one  nig-ht  and  so  surprise 
the  garrison;  but  a  heavy  storm  came  on  and 
forced  him  to  anchor  at  Sabbathday  Point  at  mid- 
nig-ht  of  the  twenty-second  of  September.  Here 
he  captured  a  small  boat  in  which  was  a  man 
named  Ferry,  a  sutler,  recently  deserted  from  the 
American  army,  who,  however,  escaped  later  in 
the  night  and  warned  Captain  Aubrey,  command- 
ing at  Diamond  Island,  of  his  danger.  Tlie  next 
day  the  motley  fleet  of  Brown  ascended  the  lake 
as  far  as  Fourteen  Mile  Island  and  anchored  ag-ain 
on  account  of  hig-h  winds.  The  following-  morn- 
ing, the  twenty-fourth  of  September,  Brown  ad- 
vanced to  the  attack  of  Diamond  Island.  The 
three  armed  boats  attacked  the  north  end  of  the 
island  and  the  others  parted  to  the  right  and  left 


102 

to  try  if  at  any  point  a  landing  might  be  made. 
The  English  fired  first  and  Brown  returned  their 
fire  "  in  good  earnest."  The  enemy  were  well 
entrenched  and  had  many  well  mounted  cannon. 
Brown  made  a  bold  attack,  giving  them  as  hot 
a  fire  as  he  could.  The  battle  lasted  for  an  hour 
and  a  half  and  until  Brown  was  forced  to  abandon 
one  of  his  boats  and  tow  off  his  sloop,  which 
was  hulled.  The  English  sent  gunboats  in  pur- 
suit of  him,  but  he  made  good  his  retreat  into 
Dunham's  Bay,  where  he  burned  his  boats  and 
escaped  through  the  woods,  leaving  his  wounded 
in  charge  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  neighboring 
country  whom  he  had  rescued  from  their  im- 
prisonment at  Ticonderoga. 

This  g'allant  little  adventure  was  so  soon  fol- 
lowed by  the  surrender  of  Burgoyne's  whole  army 
at  Saratoga  that  it  has  been  w^ell-nigh  forgotten 
in  historj".  With  the  fall  of  Burgoyne,  which 
discouraged  the  English  from  venturing  far  from 
the  sea  coast  and  a  supporting  fleet,  and  secured 
the  French  Alliance  for  the  United  States,  all  war 
on  Lake  George  ended.  Fort  George  and  Fort 
Ticonderoga  fell  into  ruins,  while  Diamond 
Island,  dug  over  for  its  crystals,  was  forgotten 
as  a  fortification,  and  people  wondered  when, 
not  many  years  since,  a  brass  cannon  was  seen 
imbedded  in  the  water  near  there. 


103 


EARLY   VISITORS    AT   LAKE    GEORGE. 

Washing-ton  ^vas  the  father  of  Lake  George 
travel.  In  the  summer  of  1783,  while  he  was 
waiting-  for  the  evacuation  of  New  York,  before 
the  final  disbanding-  of  his  army,  he  came  north, 
made  the  journey  through  Lake  George,  and  after 
visiting  Ticonderoga  and  Crown  Point  reascended 
the  lake  on  his  return.  The  only  conveyance  of 
those  days  on  the  lake  was  the  flat-bottomed 
bateaux,  wdth  blanket  sail,  and  no  doubt  Wash- 
ington landed  at  various  points  and  islands  on  the 
lake  to  cook  and  eat  his  meals. 

Soon  after  the  Revolution  the  shores  of  Lake 
George  were  invaded  by  settlers,  who  cleared  a 
few  farms  on  its  shores  and  sp)ent  much  time  in 
the  deer  hunt,  one  man  being  known  to  kill  as 
many  as  thirty  deer  a  year  in  its  waters. 

The  rude  forerunner  of  the  Lake  George  Hotel 
appeared  at  an  early  date.  Some  of  the  first 
pleasure-seekers  of  distinction  to  visit  this  already 
famous  spot  were  General  Schuyler,  President 
Dwight  of  Yale  College  and  Aaron  Burr.  James 
Caldwell,  a  rich  Albany  merchant,  founded  the 
village  of  the  same  name  at  the  head  of  the  lake, 
where  his  descendants  still  own  large  tracts  of 
land.  Visitors  came  in  ever-increasing  numbers 
and  in  1825  one  of  them,  the  Duke  of  Saxe-Weimar, 
found  the  earliest  Lake  George  steamboat,  the 
Mountaineer,  plying  on  these  waters. 

And  now  at  last  Lake  George  was  no  longer  to 
be   the  haunt   of   bloodthirstv    braves;     no   more 


104 

was  it  the  arena  of  a  fierce  strife  between  two 
great  nations  eng-ag-ed  in  a  death  strug-gle  for  the 
control  of  a  continent.  Peaceful  pleasure  parties 
only  sought  its  waters  and  summer  homes  grew 
up  on  its  shores.  But  those  who  seek  it  for 
pleasure,  health  and  rest  may  well  give  a  thought 
to  the  honest  fellows  who  left  its  earth  sown 
with  their  bones,  who  dyed  its  waters  with  their 
blood  and  who  enriched  its  natural  beauties  with 
the  memories  of  their  brave  deeds. 

POINTS  OF  HISTORIC   INTEREST   ON  AND  ABOUT 
LAKE   GEORGE. 

The  Site  of  the  Battle  of  Lake  George, 
1755,  lies  on  some  partially  improved  property 
north  of  the  Fort  George  Road,  and  across  the 
railroad  from  about  the  middle  of  the  beach,  at 
the  head  of  Lake  George.  Entrenchments  may 
still  be  traced  in  the  woods  on  this  tract  of 
land,  and  the  Militarj^  Spring  under  the  edge 
of  a  rise  of  ground  here  is  memorable  as  hav- 
ing been  used  by  the  English  army  when  en- 
camped there.  In  running  a  new  road  north 
of  this  site  many  bones  were  found,  and  bak- 
ing ovens  built  of  stone  and  brick  were  un- 
earthed, which  have  since  been  well-nigh  de- 
stroyed vt  the  hands  of  vandal  relic  hunters. 
The  State  has  taken  measures  to  preserve  this 
spot  as  a  park,  and  the  Society  of  Colonial  Wars 
is  about  to  erect  a  monument  on  this  memorable 
ground. 

Fort  Willia]vi  Henry,  located  in  the  eastern- 


l^ 


105 

most  portion  of  the  grounds  of  the  hotel  of  the 
same  name.  The  earthworks  remain  intact  an'I 
the  form  of  the  fortifications  may  distinctly  Ik- 
traced.  They  are  covered  with  a  noble  growth  of 
pines  which  have  sprung-  up  since  the  close  of  the 
last  French  war,  in  1760. 

Fort  George,  situated  on  a  rocky  hill  over- 
looking the  railroad  where  it  debouches  on  the 
beach  at  Lake  George,  is  the  site  of  the  entrenched 
camp  occupied  by  the  main  body  of  the  garrison 
of  Fort  William  Henry,  during  the  siege,  and  of 
the  massacre  of  Lake  George.  To-day  the  re- 
mains of  Fort  George,  built  by  Amherst  and  after- 
wards occupied  in  the  War  of  the  Revolution  by 
a  detachment  of  Burgoyne's  army,  may  be  found 
on  the  spot. 

Ax  Old  Military  Dock,  from  which  both 
Abercromby's  and  Amherst's  armies  embarked  on 
their  expeditions  against  Ticonderoga,  still  exists 
under  water  on  the  beach  at  the  head  of  Lake 
George.  Near  the  same  spot  the  remains  of  a 
sunken  sloop  may  also  be  seen — a  relic,  no  doubt, 
of  one  of  the  fleets  of  the  various  armies  which 
traversed  Lake  George. 

Fort  Gage,  lying  bet\yeen  Luzerne  and  Xh*^ 
Plank  Road,  was  an  outpost  of  the  encampment 
of  Abercromby's  army. 

Montcalm's  Camp  was  located  on  the  grounds 
of  the  old  Caldwell  Mansion  House,  now  the 
property  of  Mr.  Henry  W.  Hayden,  and  on  those 
across  the  road  known  as  the  Golf  Ground. 

The  Temporary  Camp  occupied  by  the  garrison 


106 

t)f  Fort  Wiliam  Henry  was  located  on  the  hig-h 
ground  back  of  the  Catholic  Church. 

The  Fort  William  Hexry  Farm  occupied  the 
site  of  the  present  hotel,  its  grounds  and  those  of 
the  houses  across  the  Plank  Road.  The  grounds 
of  some  of  these  cottages  are  thickly  filled  with 
skeletons.  In  digging  one  cellar  the  remains 
of  sixteen  men  were  found,  one  of  whom  was  an 
officer  as  was  proved  by  the  fact  that  his  body 
had  been  enclosed  in  a  plank  coffin,  in  which  were 
found  an  officer's  epaulets. 

Artillery  Cove  is  the  spot  where  Montcalm 
landed  his  cannon  for  the  siege  of  Fort  William 
Henry,  at  night,  under  cover  of  the  darkness. 

The  Landixg  of  Montcalm's  Army  probably 
took  place  in  the  small  bay  north  of  the  two 
points  belonging  to  Mr.  Cramer.  From  this  point 
]\[ontcalm's  army  marched  in  three  columns  to 
besiege  Fort  William  Henry. 

Bolton  was  Montcalm's  rendezveus  for  his 
forces  on  coming  from  the  north  to  invest  Fort 
AYilliam  Henry,  a  triangle  of  fire  being  built  on 
the  mountain  side  here  bj'  the  land  forces,  as  a 
signal  to  those  on  the  water.  At  this  spot  the 
whole  army  ate  and  rested. 

Diamond  Island.  Fortified  by  Burgoj'ne  in  the 
War  of  the  Revolution  for  the  protection  of  the 
stores  which  he  brought  through  Lake  George 
for  the  support  of  his  army.  Here  a  sharp  battle 
was  fought  between  Captain  Aubrey,  in  command 
of  the  island,  and  Colonel  Brown,  in  a  fleet  of 
boats  captured  from  the   English  at  the   foot  of 


107 

the  lake  and  manned  by  Americans.  A  brass 
<?annon  has  been  seen  imbedded  in  the  lake  l>ot- 
tom  north  of  this  island. 

Dunham's  Bay,  in  pre-g-lacial  times  the  outlet 
of  one  of  the  two  streams  which  flowed  through 
the  Valley  of  Lake  Georg-e  and  took  their  ri.se  in 
the  Narrows.  Here  Brown  destroyed  his  boats 
after  his  defeat  at  Diamond  Island  and  made  his 
escape  by  land.  The  remains  of  old  boats  may  be 
seen  in  the  water  here,  which,  it  has  been  con- 
jectured, were  those  of  the  plucky  Brown. 

Sabbathday  Poixt,  so  called  for  the  reason 
that  the  army  of  Abercromby  landed  here  Satur- 
day night  and  left  during  the  small  hours  of 
Sundaj^  morning  to  advance  against  Ticonderoga. 
During  the  last  French  war  and  the  Revolution 
several  skirmishes  were  fought  at  this  point. 

Roger's  Rock.  Behind  this  mountain  the 
famous  scout,  Rogers,  fought  a  gallant  little  bat- 
tle with  an  overpowering  force  of  Indians  and 
French,  and  according  to  tradition  afterwards 
made  the  Indians  believe  by  stratagem  that  he 
had  slid  down  the  rock  and  so  escaped  pursuit. 
From  Rogers'  Rock  the  advance  guard  of  the 
French  army  at  Ticonderoga  kept  a  lookout  at 
the  time  Abercromby  moved  through  Lake  George 
to  the  attack  of  that  post. 

The  Falls  of  Ticoxderoga.  Here  Lord  Howe 
fell,  on  the  west  bank  of  the  stream,  near  where 
Trout  Brook  enters  it. 

Ticonderoga,  occupied  first  by  Dicskau  in  his 
advance  against  the  English,  was  for  some  years 


108 

the  advance  jjost  of  the  French  and  the  site  of 
the  battle  of  Ticoudcroga.  It  %vas  finallj^  aban- 
doned and  partly  destroyed  by  the  French  when 
Amherst  laid  siege  to  it.  At  the  outset  of  the 
Eevolutionary  Avar  it  was  captured  by  Ethan 
Allen  and  later  fell  into  the  hands  of  General 
Burg-03^ne  when  he  invaded  New  York  State.  Some 
interesting  ruins  still  remain  at  this  point  and 
here  a  monument  is  likely  soon  to  be  erected  hy 
the  Society  of  Colonial  Wars. 


% 


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date  stamped  below. 


10M-11-50'2^5i470 


REMINGTON    RAND    I  N  C  .  20 


127 
1897 


Seelye  - 

Lake  George 
histo 


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127 

G3sii5 
1897 


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